Concluded from yesterday’s edition
HOW will you describe the role played by late General Sanni Abacha in approving the 13 per cent derivation?

I always remind people that in every bad thing, there is some elements of good in it, and in every good thing, there is some elements of bad too. What Abacha did was what Napoleon Bonaparte could not do, because he really felt it and he was in total sympathy with the people of the Niger-Delta.

He thought of the age-long marginalization. We spoke with him for an hour in a meeting at the Aso Villa and he went along memory lane and told us, “see the size of Nigeria by way of its area mass compared to Sudan and other countries, it is almost four times their size, but God in His infinite mercies provided us with large population and still made us highest producer of oil in black Africa and the entire black race”.

HRM Charles Ayemi-Botu, ex-national chairman, TROMPCON

So for some people to benefit and others not to benefit, he knew at that time that oil was an exhaustible commodity. A time will come that it will finish and when it finishes, what will they use to develop the area that has been polluted, that has ecological degradation, that they cannot drink their natural water because of oil exploration and exportation?

Exploration and exploitation

If he were to be alive, I think we would have been benefiting from the 50 per cent by now, because he was the one that said not less than 13 per cent of the derivation.

How do you see the current agitation by the Northern governors and the Arewa Consultative Forum for the downward review of the 13 per cent derivation to oil states and claim that oil wells 200 Isobath is a common patrimony?

Even the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, I think he is chewing more than he can swallow. He sees himself as an untouchable and his utterances if not properly guided, is capable of disintegrating this country. How will a Central Bank governor avow that the Boko Haram profess that they do not require western education and all of them still speak English. You don’t want western education, yet you speak English.

You noticed that recently they started bombing school buildings, schools where you have innocent children who will become leaders of tomorrow are bombed. Innocent children are being killed, they don’t want western education, what informed Sanusi to go to a Financial Times conference in London and say that it is because the people are not properly developed, and hence they are doing what they are doing? He has forgotten that the North has ruled this country for over 38 years out of the 50 years after independence, leaving the other parts with just 12 years.

Revoke oil bloc licences: What were they doing in those many years, now if you had read through the past Vanguard newspapers, you will find out that though we own the oil blocs, all the oil blocs right from Babangida administration till date are owned by the Northerners. I want to use this medium to call on President Goodluck Jonathan and the Minister for Petroleum, that these oil blocs that are being used or allocated to the North who do not produce oil should be revoked.

Greater share from oil wealth

If the oil blocs are not revoked, it means Jonathan is just there for nothing, the 13 per cent derivation money does not equate to what an oil bloc owner gets. All the blocs they have is like monkey dey work baboon dey chop. All those secret things they did have been unveiled in the Vanguard newspapers, everything is stated there, that all the oil blocs in this country have been given out to the north, they are eating the greater share of nation’s wealth from the oil, so the 13 per cent derivation call is not an issue.

I am using this medium to call on Mr. President to ask the Minister of Petroleum and also to find out from the Department of Petroleum Resources and NNPC how the oil blocs are allocated, because we find out that the allocations are primarily done by the President and the ministry.

So from the available records, almost 80 per cent of the oil blocs that have been allocated, either by Gen. Babangida, Abacha and Abdulsalami, I have not been able to record the ones allocated by Obasanjo and late Yar’Adua, so we have five Heads of State and Presidents that have allocated oil blocs to their northern elite or to their kinsmen, how many of the oil blocs are allocated to the South-South?

I want them to count how many have oil blocs. Let us know the criteria that were used in allocating these oil blocs primarily to the North leaving the South-South, South-East and South-West. We want to know because this goes to show that it is all these juicy allocations that they have been receiving that makes them not want to not to leave the mantle of leadership.

Poser for Sanusi: Hence, now that Jonathan is there, they are doing all sort of things, calling for his removal, bringing Boko Haram, even before the election, they said Aso Rock is a no-go-area that it is exclusively for the north.

Now, God has revealed it to us that it is the oil bloc which enables them to make donations of over N150 billion to people because they don’t know how they got the money and now they are saying that their states don’t have enough money. In the creation of states, they will cut the states in abundance to the north, whether they are economically viable or not, they cut for them. Any military Head of State that comes creates state for them, now they have many states to contend with but they don’t have the financial wherewithal to run the states. But the oil bloc owners, individuals, the billionaires are happy.

Does Sanusi now know the number of oil blocs given to the North? Has he come to say why it has been the exclusive right of the North whose military Heads of State through coup find themselves in power to control the finances of the country and have given all these to them? And all these are not enough! Is the 13 per cent derivation peanut comparable to what they have got? The question is when the principle of derivation was agro-economy, when they were having 50 per cent, did they share the 50 per cent with us?

That is the question, did they share the Hamdalla Hotel with us?  Or the Ahmadu Bello University and other developments, the infrastructural development, training of their children in Russia and everywhere, did we benefit from them? Why is it that they are talking about 13 per cent? In fact, they are testing our sensibilities, yes, they are trying to question our sensibilities. Why should they question the 13 per cent, when they were collecting 50 per cent did we talk? Just because everybody has resorted to oil, now they are insulting us.

Is the 13 per cent derivation supposed to be applicable to the oil states alone?  

The 13 per cent by its own definition is derivation fund; does the North itself produce oil? If tomorrow, they produce oil, they will be part of it, it is not even all the South-South states that produce oil, but the derivation is applicable to all resources. The 13 per cent derivation from oil is exclusive for the nine oil producing states.

Principle of derivation

It is not money for everyone that is why it is called derivation. It could be 50 per cent or more but not less than 13 per cent should be used by the people. It is a misnomer. It is something that is unthinkable, it is just like the people seem to be uninformed, it is principle of derivation and in a true fiscal federalism, the total amount of derivatives from your place are be used by you, an amount that is provided as royalty that is paid to the Federal Government is the royalty.

The issue is that whatever they have been getting from their resources do not come us; they have been collecting it exclusively till now, even from the Ministry of Solid Minerals, we don’t know what is coming out. They are using the oil derivation to fund the Ministry of Solid Minerals and after using our money to establish and still fund it till now, we don’t even know what they derive, nobody knows.

I don’t think anything even goes to the Federal Government because they have not one day said this is how much we have got from solid minerals. Let them bring the Minister of Solid Minerals and ask him, how much of the oil money is being spent and how much is coming out to the Federal Government. I think it is zero, they are silent on it and yet they want to take from us.