A Revolt against Northern ColonialismBy Yinka Leo Ogundiran
Given the unraveling quilt about the resource control debate, I am distended to enunciate my own personal viewpoint and, maybe, bigotry about this on-going drama at the Confab. After watching many interviews and hearing numerous opinions and views, I just said to myself: It's high time you made your feeling publicized to the whole world!
My mind retains the image of the South-South delegates and I equally picture the tone and stance of their aggressors. I also came to conclusion where I found myself taking my stand in this national drama.
Resource. What is resource? I had to revisit my dictionary to see the meaning of resource. From “Advanced Learner's dictionary”, resource has these following meanings: “Wealth, supplies of good, raw materials...which a Person, a State, an Organization, or Country has or can use”. The suffix behind this so-called resource is Control, which goes this way: “Power or authority to direct, order or restrain”.
Lets now apply these forgoing meanings together. Resource control would now be: “Power, order or authority over the wealth, supplies of goods, raw materials, which a State has or can use”. At this Juncture, some stimulating conundrums are pertinent: Where is this resource located or, better still, situated? What is the rationale for the restrain against this Clamor? I will leave you to make the judgement in the later part of this treatise.
From the figures available to us, not facts though, the Northern part is touted to have a higher population more than any other part of the Country, and on that smug of self-delusion, they assume dominance and authority over the rest bulk population of the Country. With this superstition of selfdom, illusion and paradigm, they constantly usurp on the rights of the vast numbers of the populace that emerge anywhere else but the Northern region. Since this ongoing saga has reared its ugly head, many Northern leaders have been expressing their Views about the development that has ensued but it's a pity that nobody from the Northern oligarchy has apportioned a REASONABLE Judgement on this debate. And to exacerbate this unfairness from the Northern hegemony, the Governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Ahmed Markafi, made these following comments on the 23rd July at the 2005 Civil Service Day Lecture: "Those clamoring for this Resource control should see beyond now and think of tomorrow; they should consider the people at the receiving and of their decision; they should drop the case!" I was also dismayed when I heard the Governor of Adamawa State, Abdullahi Adamu, voicing out his consort in this perfidy. He said the South-South are merely directing their aggressions towards the North! Balarabe Musa, Umaru Dikko and Bala Kaoje are not left out of this vicious crusade. Leader of the Northern delegation to the Confab, Umaru Dikko, defiantly denounced that "Issues that have been decided should not be reopened. What we have agreed is that everybody is free to make comments on the issues and their comments would be recorded for posterity. To reopen the issues would be against the standing order of the Conference...as for the resource control, the conference has decided on 17%. So we cannot reopen it". But whom is Umaru Dikko talking to? His comments underscored the arrogance of the North. And his attitude constitutes a most intolerable presumption and a flagrant insult on the brotherhood that we all proclaim. But for God sake, what manner of human being would publicly open his mouth to say people should not ask for their dear rights? Sensible and reasonable?
Ok, now, let us examine the Justification for this anti-democratic initiative from the North and lets take Kano State as a case study. How much does Kano State contribute to the federation account? The answer is: Nothing! Yet Kano State has 44 Local government, which routinely collects 44 portions of the revenue shared by local government council every Month. The Kano State Government also partakes in sharing of the volume of national income available to the 36 states and the FCT. Note that from the present facts available at the federal Ministry of finance, 93% of the money in the federation account is contributed by 9 oil-producing State and Lagos. These are the 9 productive and revenue yielding States: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross-River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers. The Lagos contribution comes from custom duties at the Apapa and Tin Can Ports, income taxes and VAT. Whereas revenue-famished Kano is entitled to the 44 Local Councils, whilst Bayelsa State has only 8 councils. Yet Bayelsa is where oil was first discovered in 1956. Delta State that accounts for 35% of the oil and gas revenue of the country has only 25 councils. The 6 Niger-Delta States have a total of 122 councils whilst the number in Kano State alone, not to mention the numerous other Northern States, is more than one third of this figure - recall that miniature Jigawa State with 28 councils used to be part of Kano.
I intentionally chose to expose these parts of the embarrassing Statistics in order to underline the cruel exploitation that goes by the name Federal Republic of Nigeria. If Nigeria were truly a federation, these Northerners, would not have brazen the audacity to instigate a subversion of this rightful clamor and craving for equity that these people are asking for. Another question becomes apposite: why are these parasitic Northern States flaunting their illusory political advantage as if the rest of Nigeria will not survive without Northern States’ vanished groundnut pyramids? This is the corollary of the Military Sabotage of Nigeria Federal system. I need not dissipate much energy by beaming light on how 77.7777% rulers of this country have emerged from the North - whose contribution to the national covers is nil. Assuming all these manifolds of unfairness were expropriated from our sub-conscious system and we jointly come together to nail that cruelty to our past and reasonably embrace equity and equanimity to make up for the past deficiencies, it would have been better, but alas, the Northern part together with some vicious factions of the Yorubas have ably and aptly stigmatized the aspirations of Igbo presidency as an aberration! Yet, the Country gets all it’s Wealth from that Region. How smug! The Northerners see themselves as the only worthy and benefiting candidates for Aso-Rock tenancy. Yet Nigeria claims to be on ideal State. Plato in his “Republic” explains that the ideal State is governed by reason. Are we governing ours by any reasonable reason? Aristotle himself went further by stating that only those with reason fully developed should be “Citizens”. The Aristotelian approach may appear too idealistic to be practical, in the sense that the extent to which human beings make use of their reasoning faculties is a matter of individual discipline but the present circumstances and situations now require a social discipline and national re-awakening.
With the present allocation formula of the country, only 13% goes to the Niger-Delta and 87% of the money goes to the Federal Government and other States to distribute among themselves. Even though this distribution pattern is a contradistinction to the abundance of the resources that they are imbued with. But it is still adopted for the Unity, federal-mindedness and collective economic property and social well-being of all Citizens of the country, without exception and discrimination. However, I received a great shock when I heard one of the South-South delegates to the confab divulge his conversation with Kano State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, who frontally quizzed him (the delegate) about what the Niger-Delta governors do the 13% derivation they get from the Federal allocation. This provocative exposition by Chief Mike Oke has thrown me, especially, into utter dismay. Just as the lawyer rightly and unassailably supplied: It’s a plain commonsense to know that the cost of construction in the Niger-Delta region would be exorbitant compared to an extremely arid region; it costs 10 times as much to build a road in most parts of the Niger-Delta than any part of the North. But for mischief and other ulterior intents, the Kano State Governor, who is also the Chairman of the Northen Governors forum, has personally nursed that popular and vicious deprivation which has always been foisted on the Niger-Delta people and therefore, proceeded to exacerbate the shame by opening his mouth to say it. Although this article is not poised at fueling the already-existent ember of discord and dis-equilibrium but it is geared to take an arbitrarily critical stance in all these issues. The Kano State governor ought to know better than the uneducated majority of Northerners. Well, no wonder, someone made this comment about some 3 years ago and I thought it was a word a marble: “Ignorance is not the same as illiteracy. Knowledge is not the same as literacy, or even the same as acquisition of educational certificates, or academic ranks. Some of the most highly educated in this country, by virtue of their certificates and ranks are some of the most ignorant over many crucial areas of natural and human existence and over our national life, like our geography, history, economy and politics”. I personally believe that this expression epitomizes the impending imbroglio. It's very apparent that despite the intellectual acumen of the very fortunate few Northerners, their ignorance lags with ethnocentric and tribalistic avarice. How regrettable!
We cannot blame the creator for endowing us with this lucrative and productive natural resource, and hence placing it in the barysphere of the Niger-Delta. We cannot also condemn nature for making the wealth of oil concomitant with topographic degradation and hardship. But we ought to thank God for this rich bequest and then use our own endowment of wisdom to proffer solutions to this accompanying natural degradation with revenues from this resource, which we should all do collectively, but the Northern caucus are surprisingly chagrined at the slightest craving by this poor Niger-Delta people to get just some more portions to make up for this natural inadequacy - which is fault of no man. They even forbid such discussion of, in any form, any reference to, discussion of, indeed any hint regarding some streaks of fairness in the distribution and sharing of this national cake. This goes beyond the armed robbery of South-South of their rightful natural and precious assert - oil - they even attempt an appropriation of its dreams. Yes, if it had been possible, these Northern Oligarchs, and indeed all their agents had the means to enforce it, they would have forbidden Niger-Delta people to dream and hence thinking of controlling the natural resource that the Almighty had indisputably placed in their own territory!
There is a saying in Yoruba that goes this way: “Eni ti a ni ko wa jeun to muni lowo dani”. This means : “the unconscionable breed that makes bold to feast on a banquet and, yet, tries to dislodge and stop his host from eating”.
We all know that fulanis work so hard; they are truly industrious and illustrious when it comes to the real sense of it. But this innocuous question comes up: How would anyone, a Fulani, react if he is dictated upon by whoever about how he should administer the money he receives from the sale of Cattle he had meticulously and cautiously nurtured from a Calf for at least a period of nothing less than 18-22 months?! Recently, the Egungun festival was held in Kebbi State, and the attendance was bombarded by people from all works of life, which in turn meant generation of funds from the traditional and cultural event. What percentage of whatever they realized went to Niger-Delta? The answers to all my foregoing questions are always self-evident.
With these concatenations, lets now assume that South-Westerners or South-Southerners now raise eye-brow that Kebbi state and indeed all Northern states keep all the money they make from all these idle activities that are of no meaning and importance to the country as whole but, maybe, significant to them, and also the money they make from their Cattle rearing - although I don't know whether they collect tax or whatever duties from this Nomadic farming, how would these Northern people react to that?
We all say it with our tongues that we want to live happily together as a nation, yet, at the utmost opportunity for the nation to exchange views and call a round table talk - such as the seemingly illusory Confab, the Northern congress always implacably scuffles off the plans with various ruses and stratagems with their manipulated population.
Mokwugo Okoye in his “Point of Discord” had this to say about Colonialism: “Colonialism means essentially the economic exploitation of the manpower and natural resources of a dependent country or state in the interest of the big private or public monopolies of the dominant nation, party or state; it means the strategic domination of the colonial territory and its absorption in the imperialist bloc on a World scale”. If we critically juxtaposed our current lingering and blundering interregnum with the view of this brilliant writer, who wrote this about 32 years ago, concerning colonialism, we would impeccably see an acute nexus in-between what he said and the cruel exploitation that is melted out on the South-South. This means: "Colonialism still reigns in the country". The Mallams have avidly evinced themselves as 2nd Colonial masters over the rest of us! But it is strange that their improvised theory of Colonialism or Colonization doesn't involve the development of the Colony - which we all milk from!
But to confound this already-embarrassing situation, their contribution to the National cake is just 0.00000%! Well, its nobody's fault that God planted this boastful asset where it lies today, but I think and, I therefore say that the Northerners should gracefully and gratefully accept whatever they are given because the resource in question is not their property and they don't have any right over it. From the Southern tip of South-Africa to the landmass of the Americas, Asia and even the Soviet Union of today, people only get rewarded based on their performance. It's only in Nigeria system of governance that equity and justice are an anathema when it comes to allocation. Under the auspices of flaccid Nigeria's system of distribution and allocation, the Custodians of the abundance are punished and allowed to rotten; people who never contributed anything, like Kano, get exhilarating reward; all agents of production are treated with equal deference or indifference as the case may be, even though some are human beings and others are just gross material resources; and those who contribute very little to the aggregate national wealth more often than not, get the lion's share in the course of distribution whilst those who contribute the most may get nothing at all or comparatively very little for their efforts. Again under our federal viscous auspices, greed and naked self-interest are allowed to flourish, breeding in their wake permanent Oppression or what is euphemistically called “deprivation”, as well as the co-existence of extremes of ironic Wealth and Poverty which, in their turn, breed discord, strife, violence and revolution - which is evidently imminent in our Polity.
If you think I am too stern with this treatise, you can take a plunge to the Village of Oloibiri in Bayelesa where this so-called resource was discovered in 1956 and then take a drive to Kano and, indeed, many Northern States or towns and compare their road Networks and the living conditions in, Aboh, Nembe, Bomadi, Ankasa, Escravos – all in Niger-Delta with North-East, North-central, North-East or North-whatever, you will form the opinion yourself - that is if you are objective.
We have been hearing about the Secretive plots, ploys and plans that Biafran aspiration is still not a former Civil-war agenda. There have been moves going on underneath by some powerful Oligarchs from Niger-Delta to detach themselves from this federalized State. This move, however, must be forestalled by the rest of us by briskly and promptly preferring a Solution to the intrinsic injustices that we visit on these our Niger-Delta compatriots with our ethnocentric and tribalistic greed - Yorubas also concurrent in this vein.
With some of the few reasonable reform agendas by this administration, like the debt pardon and some other things, Nigeria looks set to reclaim it place of glory. We also have a potentially economic, and hence political, giant in Africa, in every sense of the word. Therefore, a diminution of the Nigeria territory would falsify our vision, dash our hopes and specifically deprive us of the unlimited economic advantage derivable from a united Nigeria. Hence we felt ourselves compelled to fight - and to do so valiantly - "to keep Nigeria one". Similarly, the hope of an assured greater economic prosperity and social well-being in a United Nigeria, in contradistinction to the comparative niggardliness of a fragmented portion of the Country, is the mainspring for the smoothness with which the process is now taking places.
We must however whip up patriotic sentiments and lets quickly address these crucial national issues. The Confab should deliberate further to appropriate necessary and deserving measures to these imperative clamors. These people should get what they deserve. Otherwise, the Confab would just be seen as a mere chitchat, which involved the unproductive expenditure of vast sums of money, as a matter of fact, the participants were evidently and politically and hand-picked because I don't think I would have personally conceded my proximity to the delegates representing my state - Osun! That is why you see men like Professor Auwalu Hamisu Yadudu, who was the Legal Adviser to the most vicious and despotic head of State that Nigeria has ever known, Generalissimo Sani Abacha, in the so-called Confab!
President Obasanjo should make his war on corruption more purposeful than fight against theft of treasury alone: it should encompass all facets of our national livelihood as well as restrain the habitual use and abuse of supreme executive power. Mere patronage or favoritism, are also in their wake, corruption. It's nothing but tyranny.
Leaders of the World's most powerful Countries don't go about intimidating the Citizenry of their Countries with escorts and sirens, but alas, it's ludicrous that the Otta farmer who also doubles as the Chairman of Nepad, gives his lawyer, Chief Afebabalola, unlawful and illegal luxury of escorts and siren that oppresses proletariat which the AU Chairman claims to be serving! It's comical that this Legal luminary of distinction is swimming in ocean of illegal extravagance! Would Baba Iyabo say his lawyer needs special guards, watch or security? OK, well, what about the rest of us that make up 150 million? Well, angels who live in heaven are enough to watch over us in Nigeria! May God help us in this country. This should also be considered rather than concocting irrational and, indeed, unreasonable propagandas with his unctuous and robot-minded messenger, Femi Fani-Kayode. This lawyer who hails from Ife, who is specialized in disseminating arrant nonsense and propagandas, should always think before he addresses the Public. His haughty and thoughtless approach to many national issues is becoming alarming and embarrassing to the Country as a whole.
And back to our egbons from the North, it's high time they stopped profaning that 13% derivation is equitable. They should eschew away any tribalistic sentiment and reasonably adopt good spirit of cordiality and accept the proposed 25%, and consequently brace themselves ahead for the imminent 50% derivation to the Niger-Delta region - which is an inescapable inevitability.
I would like to end this article with a message from “The wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon: "If there is no room in your heart for consideration towards those who are suffering beneath you, there will be no room for you in God's house".
God bless Nigeria!
I welcome all comments and opinions.
Yinka Leo Ogundiran, Agodi Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Presidency_yk@yahoo.com |