By .
Uduaghan
What is going on is that the North is confronting a mammoth paradox today: a stunning epiphany and an overwhelming denial. A light has fallen into the northern room, but it is at once illuminating and blinding. The illumination comes from its realisation that the North today is not the North of 20 years ago, where it flexed muscles and dictated what happened from the tips of Sokoto to the ocean waves in Lekki Peninsula.
That was the north of the shadowy Kaduna mafia, the force of men powerful for being anonymous. They were the predators, growling and belching smoke. It was a rampart of power, deciding resource allocations, fuelling military coups, assigning contracts, guzzling and gurgling the oil of the Niger Delta. The mafia, for want of a better word, inspired fear and trembling, respect and loathing, and all the vile emotions in between.
But it was a quiet and sullen force, not enamoured of public debate nor given to dithering. It had the power of crime and punishment as well as reward. Cocky and quietly defiant, it sometimes carried notoriety as a badge.
Today, the northern power force has no such weight. That is where the denial is. It is because of the denial that we have northern elite bluster in public. It is because there is not much private power. In the heyday of the mafia, they would have shunned the theatre of public debate about offshore and onshore dichotomy. They would have done what they did when derivation was only one per cent. Now, they have to shout and remind one of Wole Soyinka’s chiding of the dowagers of Negritude: a tiger should not shout its “tigritude.” The point is that there are no genuine tigers in the vast lands of the North any more.
But it is not in the character of this column to gloat, since the issue of onshore/offshore dichotomy is not a debate that extends the frontiers of one nation. This is a sombre reality because it is a question of power more than harmony.
But more interesting is that the Niger Delta, which encases the oil, has ironically been a longtime ally of the north. The North has always played the avuncular or even paternal role, dictating the orientation of its politics and enjoying the obeisance of the South-south elite. Its first shock was the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as President, even though he did it without any regard for the niceties of a statesman. However, Jonathan has shaken the North and it is looking for legitimate means of reasserting itself. But rather than do it by recalibrating its strategy, using its vast size and numerous constituencies and brilliant political players, it is trying to use the brawn of its glory days. That is futile today. That is why its pursuit of the revenues of the Niger Delta states mocks its imperial past.
The relation between the North and the Niger Delta is a clear case of oedipal complex. The father has woken up to see that the son is so powerful that he can slay his former superior. It is the potential equivalent of political parricide.
There are a number of reasons why the call for a review of the offshore/onshore dichotomy cannot stand. One, the 2004 decision by the National Assembly was a compromise that involved every stakeholder from the North. Two, the 13 per cent given to the people of the region is miniscule given what comes out of the bowels of their earths. Three, why does the North want to cut into the 13 per cent when a man like Kwankwaso knows that in the years of the groundnut pyramid, the region enjoyed as much as 50 per cent in derivation. Import duties were also paid to the regions. Is our history going to serve as a parasitic one or a productive one? Why are the states not focused on generating the huge potential that mock us daily in every state? We are seeing already how some governors are raking up more money in internally generated revenue in places like Edo, Oyo, Lagos, Osun and Ekiti. Even Sokoto State has had a good record in that regard.
In fact, a state like Kano that compares itself in population and investment to Lagos should follow what Lagos has been doing to generate funds as a non-oil state. States like Delta, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers have suffered great environmental degradation from oil pollution. The communities cost more to develop than any part of the country.
In his lecture in Asaba last week, Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, stressed the point that oil does not last forever. Hear him: “If the demand for resource control has remained trenchant, it is simply because our people have for long lived with the stark evidence of a mindless exploitation of the oil resources in their land. They have lived with the despoliation and degradation of their environments without concomitant benefits…”
He noted that the “peaceful nature of the people” is taken for granted, adding that oil will not last forever. “There are two cardinal points I envisage. One, get the most you can from oil now as you transform to a post-oil era,” Uduaghan said, echoing his signature: Delta Beyond Oil initiative. “Two, develop other resources of revenue and diversify your economy…”
A study noted that if the offshore money was redistributed to all the states, they would get about 150 million each. How can that make a Dubai of the northern states?
Why would a state suffer the consequences of its littoral status and not enjoy the benefits. The most potent in this regard is Akwa Ibom State. Its Governor, Godswill Akpabio, with massive infrastructure development and education, has deployed its resources to elevate a state that has suffered from the pollution of its waters.
Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states suffer both from onshore and offshore violations. To deny this is to be insensitive. Not long ago, we witnessed the escalation of militancy in that region. We do not want eruptions of rage in that region again as it will compound the pains of a nation still trying to come to terms with the agonies of Boko haram.
Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda hit the bull’s eye when, in dissociating himself from some of his northern colleagues, asserted that the Niger Delta communities have suffered greatly suffering and should be compensated. Second, he echoed the point that the north took part in the debate and decision against onshore/offshore dichotomy.
This is not the time to curse the darkness of discord in the land. Let us light candles. I argued on this page that 13 per cent was little. Now, some want that also removed. The point they want to make is that foul is fair.
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