Niger Delta Group Demands 100 Percent Oil Control, Threatens Buhari
Nigeria is on the brink of another
disaster as Niger Delta groups have
demanded for immediate change in
the oil sharing formula, as they now
want 100 percent control.
When Boko Haram captured
territory in Nigeria’s northeast last
year and declared a caliphate, there
were real fears for the sovereignty of
Africa’s most populous nation. A
deadline is looming for the military
to end the six years of violence, with
signs that troops have wrested back
control of most of the towns and
villages lost to the Islamists. But now
President Muhammadu Buhari is
facing another potential headache
with the revival of separatist
sentiment in the country’s southeast
and renewed debate over the sharing
of oil wealth.
Recent weeks have seen a wave of
protests calling for an independent
state of Biafra, 45 years after the end
of the brutal civil sparked by a
previous declaration of
independence. Now, campaigners in
the oil-producing Niger delta are
demanding total control of resources
to develop the region, which remains
under-developed despite billions of
dollars earned from crude.
Last Friday, the Niger Delta Self-
Determination Movement (NDSDM)
lobby group, declared the current
agreement, whereby oil revenue is
divided among Nigeria’s 36 states,
was unfair.
“The 13 percent (share for the Niger
Delta) enshrined in the 1999
constitution by the military is
depriving us of our God-given
resources,” the group’s convener
Annkio Briggs told reporters in
Lagos.
“We want 100 percent control and
ownership of our oil so that we can
control our future.”
– Northern dominance –
Nigeria’s crude-reliant economy has
been battered by the fall in global oil
prices, hampering government
spending and even the payment of
state-sector salaries.
Crude accounts for 90 percent of
Nigeria’s export earnings and 70
percent of government overall
revenue. In 2014, the country earned
$77 billion from oil exports,
according to the US Department of
Energy, down from $84 billion in
2013 and $94 billion in 2012. How
much each state in the federation
gets from the sector has long been a
tH0rny issue, exposing barely
concealed regional and ethnic
rivalries.
Demands for a greater share of oil
revenue were a factor in the violence
that gripped the delta in the 2000s
until a government amnesty
programme, which ends this year,
bought off militants. Briggs’ group
argues Nigeria’s political
architecture, with 19 states cla$$ed
as northern and 17 in the south,
unfairly penalises the southern
states where oil is found.
“Of the 774 local government areas
(administrative divisions within each
state), the north is given almost 70
percent,” she said, calling it
“manipulations for… socio-economic
and political dominance”. She
blamed a succession of northern-
dominated military governments for
forcing through the revenue-sharing
agreement down the barrel of a gun
“without our free, prior and
informed consent”. Briggs denied
calling for a break away from the
federation but argued every region
instead should use its own natural
resources to develop itself.
The NDSDM was founded last year
during a national conference
convened by former president
Goodluck Jonathan at which
delegates recommended the delta
region received 18 percent of oil
revenue.
The recommendation was not
implemented before Jonathan left
office.
– Politically motivated –
Nigeria is almost evenly split
between a Muslim-majority north
and largely Christian south and the
sharp division informs most aspects
of political debate. But the argument
for so-called “fiscal federalism” is
seen by some as unrealistic, with
sectors such as agriculture and
manufacturing not sufficiently
developed yet to be sustainable.
Anyakwee Nsirimovu, of the Niger
Delta Civil Society Coalition pressure
group, said demands from southern
pressure groups were predictable
now Buhari, a northern Muslim, was
in power.
“Why is it after the defeat of
Jonathan you see the likes of Annkio
Briggs, Ma$$OB (Movement for the
Actualisation of the Sovereign State
of Biafra) and IPOB (Indigenous
Peoples of Biafra) asking for
resource control and self-
determination?” he asked.
The complaints in fact exposed the
failure of Jonathan, from the oil-
producing Bayelsa state, to help his
southern kinsmen during his six
years in power, he argued. “Those
who lost out in the power equation
are behind the crisis,” he claimed.
But Tony Nnadi, of the Movement for
New Nigeria, said every ethnic group
had the right to either belong to or
pull out of Nigeria, nearly 102 years
after the country was formed.
“In 1914, the so-called Nigeria came
into being through an amalgamation
of southern and northern
protectorates by the British colonial
power,” he said.
“By the provisions of the
amalgamation, we have the right
since 2014 to renegotiate the basis of
our continued existence.
The experiences of various ethnic
groups “in the last 100 years have
shown we cannot continue in the
marriage”,he added.
Source: AFP
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