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The Fallacy of 50% Derivation By Nafata Bamaguje
In response to the troubling Niger Delta insurgency, ethnic jingoists and charlatans from the area have been agitating for 50% derivation as panacea to the crisis. Their outrageous, gluttonous demand which would impact negatively on the rest of the nation is based on two fallacies – that underdevelopment of the Niger Delta is due to lack of funds; and fraudulent disingenuous comparison to derivation in the first republic.
Anyone who is aware of the stupendous amount of money that accrues to the Niger Delta in terms of derivation, NDDC and even help from oil companies cannot honestly assert that underdevelopment of the Delta is due to lack of funds. As pointed out in an earlier related article, Rivers state alone collects more allocation than all 6 North-east states together. Akwa Ibom which doesn't produce a drop of crude oil (thanks to unfair offshore allocation) comes second, with monthly allocation that exceeds all South-east states together, even though some of these South-east states (Abia, Imo) actually have oil.
Yet citizens of these oil-rich derivation states aren't much better off than those of the non-oil states. Instead of holding their corrupt leaders accountable, their ethnic chauvinists prefer chasing shadows demonizing the "lazy parasitic North", as if the presence of crude oil in the Delta is the result of their hardwork.
Even a Niger Delta leader, Joseph Amberkederim of the South-south Elements Progressive Union recently admitted that - "the amount of money that has accrued to the South-South governors in the past nine years (1999-2008) is enough, more than enough to transform the Niger Delta ...If monies are being used judiciously and religiously, the monies that have come to the governors of the South-South today, we would not have the problems we are having in the Niger Delta… The corruption among the governors in the South-South is enormous, the stealing is enormous..."
Increased derivation might be justified if the current 13% derivation, State, Local govts and NDDC allocations had been judiciously utilized but found to be inadequate. But we all know that much of the funds have been corruptly frittered away, and until this unconscionable thievery is eradicated even 100% derivation won't make much of a difference to the average Niger Deltan.
Fifty percent derivation was possible in the first republic because there were only 3 or 4 large federating units as against today's 36. Consequently the 50% derivation from coal benefited not just the Udi Igbos, but the entire Eastern region including Niger Deltans…at a time when crude oil was not a major revenue earner. Similarly, the tin wealth wasn't only for Jos people but the entire North.
In essence, the large federating units of the first republic accommodated both the haves and have-nots of the nation so that all Nigerians benefited from our collective wealth - even those who didn't have a tin or coal mine in their backyard. With the current 36-state balkanization of our polity where the nation's wealth in our mono-culture economy is now concentrated in a few small federating units, 50% derivation would cripple the Federal government and render it unable perform its constitutional functions. Most of the non-oil states won't even be able to pay salaries, talk less of development projects.
Although in their callous un-Nigerian parasitic selfishness the Niger Delta chauvinists may not realize it, such an ugly scenario of wide wealth disparity between oil-rich states and the impoverished have-not states is not at all in the interest of the South-south because people will move to where there is money.
Nigerians will migrate en-masse from the poor states to the oil-rich states and Niger Deltans will eventually become a minority in their land. This is not all as far-fetched as it might sound, as it has already happened in Lagos where indigenes are the minority. And the wealth disparity between Lagos and other states is nowhere near the marked distortion in our polity 50% derivation would cause.
The saving grace for indigenous Lagosians is that much of the non-indigenes are also Yorubas – their ethnic kith & kin who share their worldview and aspirations. Niger Deltans will have no such succour when the massive migration provoked by marked wealth disparity of 50% derivation begins. They will be overwhelmed worse than the massive influx Zimbabweans into South Africa after Zimbabwe's economic collapse, which precipitated the recent black-on-black xenophobic violence in South Africa. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that in Naija.
Furthermore such massive migration would adversely impact on the fragile Niger Delta ecology and compound the vaunted but largely self-inflicted environmental degradation. If Niger Deltans won't share the oil wealth with other Nigerians resident in other states, then they will have to share it when these other Nigerians flood into the Niger Delta.
The only way Niger Deltans can have their 50% or 100% derivation and keep other Nigerians out, is if they secede. One suspects that this is the real agenda of the Ijaw secessionist insurrection masquerading as Niger Delta struggle, but they dare not say so openly, lest the full might of Nigerian military is unleashed to crush them as happened to the abortive Biafra. The insurgents are well advised not to mistake the restraint of Nigerian military for weakness.
Ijaw secessionist agenda is evident from the obvious fact that all the so-called Niger Delta militant groups (MEND, NDPVF, Egbesu) are actually are Ijaw militias; and from utterances of Ijaw leaders. How many Ogonis, Itsekiris, Ikwerres or other non-Ijaw Niger Deltans are in MEND or NDPVF ? Asari Dokubo says he doesn't believe in Nigeria and wants a Sovereign National Conference to oversee the dismemberment of this potentially great country. Edwin Clark calls for an Ijaw super-state to encompass all Ijaws - Bayelsa is not enough.
Never mind that Ijaws are sprinkled as settlers among indigenous non-Ijaws throughout much of our south Atlantic coast from Ondo to Akwa Ibom. Hence Ijaws have at various times had territorial conflicts with the indigenous non-Ijaws - Yorubas in Ondo, Urhobos, Itsekiri and even as recently as 2 weeks ago in Akwa Ibom which has neglible Ijaw population. These indigenous non-Ijaws are of course expected to cede their Ijaw populated territories to Ijaw expansionist hegemony.
If as some of the insurgents would have us believe, development of the Niger Delta is their objective, then their violence is counterproductive. How can the Niger Delta infrastructure be improved when they kidnap Julius Berger construction workers ? Which entrepreneur would want to invest and create jobs in the troubled Niger Delta, with its present climate of fear and violence ? How much of the millions of Naira and Dollars collected as kidnap ransom, extortion from oil companies and bunkering have these glorified hoodlums invested to improve the lot of Niger Deltans ? All of which confirms the suspicion of a secessionist agenda to sabotage Nigeria in order to facilitate our disintegration.
It is disingenuous and patently unreasonable to compare revenue from agriculture (mainstay of the North's economy), which has relatively low profit margin and is the sweat of ordinary folks around the country; with crude oil which has virtually no input from average Niger Deltans but has enormous profit margin. In fact most of the relatively meager profit from agriculture doesn't even reach government coffers as these are mainly from informal transactions between ordinary Nigerians buying & selling foodstuffs. Elsewhere around the world, agriculture is even subsidized to boost production.
From the foregoing therefore, it is obvious that the hyped 50% derivation "true federalism" requires two indispensable prerequisites – restructuring our federation into no more than 10 federating units, and diversification of our mono-cultural economy away from oil so that non-oil states can also prosper. Non-oil revenue was used to develop our oil resource, so it's quite in order to utilize the current oil boom to diversify our economy into manufacturing, agriculture & solid minerals; not just to enable the non-oil states thrive but also to prepare for the rainy day when oil runs out.
Unfortunately our kleptocratic ruling class seems content with gorging themselves on the oil windfall, while making empty noises about "vision 2020" – just as they did with the failed "health, shelter & water for all by the year 2000" and Abacha's ill-fated vision 2010. They repeatedly shift the goalpost of national transformation and raise false expectations as their ineptitude, corruption and lack of patriotic commitment prevents them from faithfully executing any meaningful development plan.
Going by the continued agitation for more economically unviable states that will inevitably be dependent on Federal allocations, and run by thieving politicians with money-guzzling bureaucracies, Nigerians are not yet ready for the 50% derivation kind of "true federalism".
Whatever success there was in the first republic was not because of the southern hyped "true federalism", but because the leaders of the first republic were for the most part less corrupt and more responsive to the aspirations of their people. Zik, Awo, Balewa and Sardauna weren't thieves like IBB, Abacha,OBJ and their collaborators. If our leaders had used our oil wealth to positively transform Nigeria with Port Harcourt and Warri like Dubai, there would be no Niger Delta insurgency, even if there was no derivation.
Thus corrupt inept leadership (not derivation) is the major problem Nigeria must decisively deal with if we are to move forward as a nation. Regrettably our illegitimate President Yar Adua and his gang of Predatory Demonic Parasites (PDP) are not up to the task. Since our votes never count in this kleptocratic quasi-democracy, we need a revolution to boot out the thieving ruling class; rid us of all these divisive retrogressive ethno-sectarian bickering and enthrone a new national ethos of vision, probity and accountability in governance.
Nafata Bamaguje Daura, Katsina state
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