Oil Dichotomy Suit: Northern Govs, Agents of Disunity -- Group
From Cletus Akwaya in Abuja
Northern Democratic Alliance (NODA), a network of civil society organisations in the North, yesterday accused governors of the 19 Northern states seeking abrogation of the offshore/onshore dichotomy act of fanning embers of disunity.
The group also described the suit as a diversionary tactic by the Governors to blindfold the electorate from their poor performance and thereby shirk their responsibilities to the people.
The 19 governors in the North and their colleagues in the South-west recently filed a suit in the Supreme Court seeking abolition of onshore/offshore dichotomy.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja, National Coordinator of the group, Malam Uba Sani, said the suit was bound to usher in another phase of violence in the Niger Delta.
The group therefore asked the governors to withdraw the suit without any conditions.
"By going to court to seek the nullification of the act abrogating the onshore/offshore dichotomy which came into force in February 2004, the 19 Northern Governors have pitched the North in a battle against our brothers and sisters in the South-South.
While the people of the Niger Delta are crying over environmental degradation and other social vices, the little palliative given to them is being threatened. Expectedly, due to the impact of what they have been through, they will be infuriated, and we shall return to the old days, where Northerners cannot feel safe in the South," Sani said.
The human rights activist expressed fears that the suit would return the Niger Delta to "the dark days of tension where ethnic conflagration, kidnappings, arson, and killings were the order of the day."
He said having achieved some measure of stability, it behooves on all Nigerians to work to improve the situation by integrating other components of national development, infrastructural development, implementation of food security plan, revitalization of education and health care services.
"We are concerned that our match towards greatness as a nation is being hampered by the intricacies surrounding the question of the sharing of oil wealth in this country so much so that a lot of people have lost faith in the ability of Nigerians to carry out the simple task of sharing what God Almighty decided in his own wisdom to bless us with," he added.
Describing the country's oil as a curse in the manner it has been exploited and shared over the years, Sani faulted Northerners for over dependence on oil and challenged them to concentrate on agriculture and solid minerals, as both sectors have the potential to surpass oil in revenue generation to the states.
He warned that the earlier declaration by the same governors that the North should produce the presidency in 2007 would be a futile effort if their court case was allowed to be pursued to its logical conclusion.
Sani asked while the North with majority of members in both chambers of the National Assembly did not make inputs into the bill when it was being debated only to challenge it barely six months after it was signed into law.
"We operate a democratic system, where it is counter productive to wait until a law is passed before going to court to seek to revert it no matter how genuine the quest may be," he said.
In calling on the governors to withdraw the suit, NODA advised that some mechanism be set in motion "that seeks to build bridges of understanding between the people of Northern Nigeria and other sections of the country."
It urged the Northern governors to "articulate an agenda that seeks to bring to the fore the natural disasters afflicting Northern Nigeria and lobby for special consideration."
Specifically, NODA advised that a case be made for the Development of Agriculture as a National Food security concern using the excess revenue accruing from oil sales just as it canvassed the design of a master plan that would enable the North export cash crops and livestocks to the whole of West Africa.
These recommendations, the group said, were arrived at after due consideration with elders, emirs, some of the governors and political leaders of different shades in the North who did not support the suit.
"NODA is concerned that the North is the most backward section of Nigeria, when you look at the various indices: poverty, child mortality, illiteracy, absence of social infrastructure, girl-child education, child labour, family income and many more. Why are the Governors not coming together to develop education, health agriculture and things like that?" he asked.
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