The people of Niger Delta are the ones marginalizing themselves because each tribe thinks herself as more Niger Deltan than the other, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has said.
Governor Wike who stated this at the 30th celebration of Ogoni Day with the theme, “Leaving no one behind”, that held at the Birabi Memorial Grammar School, Bori town, in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State on Tuesday, noted that the same lack of unity seen in Ogoniland is prevalent in the entire Niger Delta because governors in the region, lawmakers and other levels of leaders are hardly working together in unison.
Chairman of the occasion and President, Ijaw National Congress, Professor Benjamin Okaba said the fundamental problem of the country is the refusal of the Nigerian State to restore the derivation principle that was abrogated by Decree NO.34 of May 1966 by Aguiyi Ironsi, the subsequent promulgation of Petroleum Decree 1966, and General Olusegun Obasanjo’s 1978 Land Use Act considered widely as the most obnoxious, draconian and unjust piece of legislation on land and resource ownership.
“The Petroleum Industry Act 2021, that is laced with several contentious and discriminating clauses against the people of the Niger Delta is yet another dimension of institutional injustice against the oil and gas host communities of the Niger Delta.
“Chief Obasanjo who is unarguably widely travelled, if excused from the paranoid of hypocrisy and hatred for the Niger Delta, will admit that in the United States of America which presidential system Nigeria borrowed from, it is the states where oil is found that own them and not the Federal Government of America.
“It’s the reason states like Texas is very rich, from proceeds of oil and gas. Same goes for Canada. In every federation, the undiluted application of the fundamentals of federalism (including fiscal federalism) are the minimum prerequisites for sustainable unity, peace and coexistence. Where else among the nations that practice federalism that permits the federal government to hijack the resources from the various federating units and communities, siphon them to the Centre on the Emperor’s laps, and shares same as booties in the manner we have in Nigeria?”
