By  GBENGA OKE
LAGOS—Pioneer National Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Second Republic Senator, Chief Aniete Okon, has lashed out at the Central Bank Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido and Niger State Governor, Alhaji Aliyu Babangida, over their comments that the Boko Haram phenomenon was a direct result of 13 per cent derivation paid to Niger Delta states.

He also said recent tantrums over derivation by Northern leaders had shown that they do not believe in one Nigeria.

Senator Okon, who spoke to Vanguard, said “the anti-derivation fever now ravaging the North along with the scourge of Boko Haram constitute a clever ploy to scare the rest of the country into conceding presidential power come 2015 to the North.

He said: “Malam Sanusi has obviously forgotten that the payment of 13 per cent of oil revenues to Niger Delta states commenced only with the 1999 Constitution.

Even then, the maintenance of the obnoxious on-shore/off-shore dichotomy after that constitution came into effect; the oil-producing states did not get the full share of oil revenues as they were entitled to and Nigerians can legitimately ask if the sort of poverty that has allegedly driven Boko Haram to commit horrific acts of terrorism had been eliminated from the Northern states prior to 1999.