In this Interview with JOHN ALECHENU, the spokesperson for the Northern Elders Forum, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, speaks about the forum’s position on a number of issues at the National Conference
A document being circulated by northern delegates at the National Conference contains so many demands. Some of which include calls for the scrapping of the amnesty programme, do you support this?
Obviously, it makes sense for government to provide protection for our land and sea resources from degradation and irresponsible oil exploration and exploitation by foreign companies. But when you look at the political intention of government trying to say that certain areas of the country should be treated in a special manner in contrast to other parts of the country that have similar concerns and problems then it doesn’t make sense.
Over the years, there has been a lot of politisation of the oil and where it comes from. This is what led to a lot of these policies that appear discriminatory against other parts of Nigeria.
Why do you say so?
I did an exercise recently and people can go and verify by looking at the budget of 2014. If you add the approved budget of the six South-South states for 2014 and add the budget for the Ministry of the Niger Delta and add the budget of NDDC and add the provision for the militants, the total amount of money that will be spent in the South-South in 2014 is N2.6tn against the N2.4tn for the 19 Northern states; N2.6tn in a place where only 12.6 per cent of the population of Nigerians live against N2.4tn for the entire 19 northern states. The discrimination is quite obvious if you look at the provision of the constitution where it says no group of people or section of the country should unfairly corner the resources of the country to the exclusion of the rest. You will see the debate in terms of general principles, if you look at the constitution of this country. Every part of Nigeria has a right to be developed.
There is a provision for even development of the country. This is not what is happening now because of these policies that appear to discriminate against some sections of the country. Take for example, the budget which allows for about N40bn for militants’ rehabilitation in 2014 while the grant given to Borno State or is it whole of the North- East to cope with the consequences and the crisis arising from the insurgency is N2bn. This is so patently clear that these policies are deliberate and of course they will not promote peace for the country. But we are hoping that you are referring to the government that is one that is seeking to share things fairly and equitably so that Nigerians can see themselves as their brother’s keepers.
What about the position that the revenue allocation formula be revisited?
That, I agree with completely. This over centralisation of functions is obviously detrimental to a federal arrangement of the type we would want to see. If you go back to the early part of our independence, what we had were regions and each region had its own constitution and in fact, this is what I would prefer for the restructuring of the country into some zones or whatever. We should have a federal constitution and state constitution and a lot of the functions that the Federal Government is carrying out now are functions that should be performed by the local governments and states. What is the business of the Federal Government dealing with primary education? The Federal Government is involved in primary education; it is also involved in secondary education and these are the responsibilities of the other tiers of government. The only area where I would say that the Federal Government should have exclusive responsibility is the military, customs and immigration. These are the key areas that all the federating units should be able to say yes; we should have a central control somewhere. But all these other functions, including the police should be on the concurrent list so that the state or whatever the federating units are willing to partake in them can do so.
… And the offshore/onshore debate?
The onshore/offshore issue is against any international practice and of course it is against the laws of the country where the resources of the country designated as underground and some in the sea are owned by the entire country not by any section of the country. This has been an irresponsible decision which was taken by the National Assembly some years back and it must be reversed.
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