BY Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South
CHIEF Wellington  Okirika, the pioneer  chairman of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, is an old bird in the struggle for better deal for oil communities in the Niger-Delta region and that is what earned him the sobriquet, Mr. 13 per cent derivation fund and Mr. Oil Commission. In this interview, he spoke on the issues pertaining to his stewardship and the present affairs of the petroleum industry. Excerpts:

You are popularly known as ‘Mr. 13 per cent derivation fund’ and ‘Mr. Oil Commission’, how did the appellation come?

Why I am called 13 per cent derivation fund is because of the role I played in the advocacy for the actualization of the 13 per cent derivation fund during the regime of one of our greatest military rulers, the late General Sani Abacha.

The communities came together, the traditional rulers, elders, men and women, and the mantle fell on me to lead the delegation at various times to the Constitutional Conference in 1995 and at the end of the day, we got 13  per cent approved by the then Head of State, but it was never implemented until the civilian regime came into place.

So, those, who are implementing the 13 per cent derivation fund, the governors and all of them were not part of the struggle for it. The money was meant to be given to the people directly through the oil commission for the management of their lives, but politicians came and hijacked this money.

...Okirika

Only a few governors then, among them Chief James Ibori of Delta state took the bull by the horn. There was also a creation in Ondo land,  Edo  and Imo, now in Abia, but the main core producing states like Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom have refused to create this oil commission.

I, however, say that it is not still late for this money to be directed to the people that it is intended for, the 13 per cent was not created under a political arrangement, it was under a military arrangement, where facts and figures were presented and it was agreed that the people who produce the wealth of this country should have not just a docile participation, but be actively involved in the management and use of this money to ensure greater sense of belonging and patriotism,  so that they can now protect the facilities that are bringing this wealth to their domain.  It is my belief that the 13 per cent can be channeled through the oil commission to the communities for their full participation.

Vision
We had a vision when we got there, but the people who are spending the derivation money now have no vision for our people. In 1995 when we went to the constitutional conference, we said that the people must take part in the management and use of part of the funds, but today, these people are being excluded. So DESOPADEC in Delta state is a pilot commission.

It is a commission that we wanted to show that we can manage our funds ourselves to ensure security, peace and development of our people so that there will be no need, all of us are not going to be in PDP or ANPP, this oil money is not PDP , ANPP or any of these parties. How many of these people are from oil producing areas in these parties, so you are denying them their rights because they are not in the kitchen cabinet of the parties that are in government.

Therefore, when I got in there as chairman of DESOPADEC, I introduced programmes and measures that touched the lives of our people, we had infrastructural development, which is known, schools, roads, we went deeply into human capital development.

We had scholarships, international scholarships, it is on record that we are the first agency in this country to send about 105 students to study in the United States; we were the only government agency that was able to do that. That is education, we had micro-credit finance, we had micro-credit for the cooperatives, we had agricultural centres, we encouraged farming in these areas, we had poultry, we had piggery, we went into a lot things that influenced the lives of our people and we also provided massive employment for our people.

But there was this complaint that you were removed because the commission was gradually losing its focus?

That is a political statement, the politicians never liked the oil commission, and they considered us as a parallel government, so they were not happy. But I used to tell them that we were not competing with you, we are not going to do election with you, why must we go and do election when God has endowed us with the wealth of our people, people are in politics because they want  to be in power for resource allocation but God has given us resource allocation  at our doorstep.

I have no reason to go into politics, I am in politics because it is the only avenue we can do advocacy and get the listening ears of the governor or the president, that is why I am in politics. I am not supposed to be in politics because God has endowed me and my people with wealth, so I should turn to my God and praise him every day.

So, it is wrong, they were not supposed to decide how we are going to spend the money; we will decide how we are going to spend our money to ensure peace, security and development. Today, the politicians who are not from these areas decide for us what we should do.

For instance, we said we want to industrialize our environment, we want to go into providing jobs and creating wealth for our people, we wanted to go into modular refineries, of course, you all know what happened, that programme was frustrated because the politicians felt we were moving too fast.

People accused you of being economical with the truth while you were in office on the allocation to the commission, it was said that funds meant for the commission were being tampered with by governor, but you never admitted so?
You know, this is a very interesting question, as I said when you have an objective, you pursue it.

Our main objective was to find a way to impact on our people, but as a pilot programme, there are bound to be fund allocation problems, but that was not an issue during my time, I will say that the governor at that time was giving to us what was due to us. I believe that it was because of that I believe that we were able to carry out massive infrastructural development; we had 4,000 workers employed in DESOPDEC and all that.

At the time of your appointment, militants ordered a ceasefire in the state that they would not bomb oil facilities or cause unrest in the creeks, as long as you have promised to develop the oil communities, how did you strike the bargain with them?
You see, eh, the militants are human beings; they became what they are because they felt they were being neglected.