By HENRY UMORU & LEVINUS NWABUGHIOGU

First civilian Governor of Rivers State and a  Southern delegate, King Alfred Diete- Spiff took a swipe at the northern position, saying that states must be allowed to develop at their own pace.

King Diete- Spiff, the Amayanabo of Brass, Bayelsa State, told Vanguard in a chat: “People should take it easy. There is nothing to it, you could call it resource control, you could call it true federalism, the issue is, this American system that we have copied; how does it work? If Federal Government tomorrow decides that it is acquiring all the oil, there will be war. The owners of the land where the oil is found will definitely not agree with this colonial mentality that they have come to acquire all the wealth of everybody, everything on earth is their own, everything under the sea belongs to the Federal Government.

“It is a matter of saying, let every state develop at its own pace and this is what Zik, Awolowo and Sarduana agreed in 1957 at the London Conference. It allowed every federating unit to develop at its own pace. Don’t slow others down and this is the same principle we are working on.”

On his part, a delegate on the platform of National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria, the Chief Priest of Benin Kingdom and a member, Committee on Land Tenure and National Boundaries, Chief Nosakhare Isekhure, described those calling for five per cent derivation as victims of self-imposed ignorance. He stressed that they must tender an unreserved apology, adding, “Current agitators are victims of self-imposed ignorance. If they know the simple meaning of federalism, they will tender an unreserved apology for their pristine advocacy.”

Also speaking with Vanguard, a delegate representing Edo State and a member of the Committee on Judiciary and Legal Reform, Chief Charles Uwensuyi- Edosomwan, SAN, said: “The unreasonableness of any position that would want to mark a revenue allocation principle in this country of largely expropriated peoples on derivation at five per cent must be obvious to those who proffer it. The insincerity of the same proponents rankles when you realise that when their resources held sway, 50 per cent was seen as proper.

“Let it be known to all that no one Nigerian owns another and that the much talked about unity of this most brittle of countries shouldn’t be taken for granted. Unity for Nigeria should be an inviolate principle of our nationhood but it cannot be unity at all costs. Only brotherliness, justice, equity and fairness would promote that unity