There are disturbing signals from the Committee on Devolution of Power at the on-going National Conference over resource control and revenue allocation writes Assistant Editor (North), CHUKS EHIRIM
Of the 20 committees which the National Conference was split into three weeks ago, the Committee on Devolution of Power seems to have attracted more attention than the rest. And the reason is obvious.
Ayo Adebanjo
Apart from the fact that the recommendations of this committee may set the tune for the shape of things in future Nigeria, it equally has, as its members, some of the most controversial and outspoken delegates to the confab. What with the likes of the former Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Coomassie, as chairman of the committee; former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Victor Attah, as co-chairman; former Minister of Health, Prof. ABC Nwosu; Niger Delta activist, Annkio Briggs; First Republic politician, Tanko Yakassai; Afenifere chieftain, Ayo Adebanjo; Engr. Buba Galadima, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, among others.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the committee has always been engrossed in heated debates. Not even early last week when most of the committees had wound up their deliberations, awaiting when they would return to plenary, was an exception. Between Monday and Tuesday, the committee members were still seen slugging it out in their meeting room at the National Judicial Institute.
Our investigations revealed that for the greater part of those two days, the delegates were pre-occupied with ironing out the issue of derivation. A source within the committee, who preferred not to be quoted, told TheNiche that there were three schools of thought regarding the issue of derivation.
According to him, the three groups included those opposed to enhanced resource control, those advocating increased percentage of derivation and the moderates who do not wantthe current order of things distorted.
Those in the first category, comprising mainly core Northern elements, pushed for complete dismantling of all vestiges of resource, including scrapping of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, stoppage of the post-Amnesty programmes of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, as well as scrapping the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The group is also said to be pushing for the activation of a Supreme Court ruling in 2004, recognising the off-shore, on-shore dichotomy. It also favours a negotiated percentage of derivation, insisting that whatever formula that is arrived at, 30 per cent of the fund must be given to the communities where oil is drilled, so as to kill, forever, restiveness and agitation.
The second group wants all the institutions of resource control such as the NDDC, Niger Delta Ministry, the Amnesty programme maintained and, in addition, derivation to be raised to 50 per cent.
The third group, which is regarded as the moderates, warned their colleagues of the dangers inherent in tampering with the status quo ante, e.g. by settling for the scrapping of the existing institutions.
According to TheNiche source, this group had posited, during the debates, that the establishment of the institutions, especially the Niger Delta Ministry and the Amnesty programme, had helped to quell restiveness in the Niger Delta region and that dismantling them would mean paving way for the return of the agitations and restiveness there once again. Delegates in this group were said to have insisted that the status quo be maintained, including the retention of 13 per cent derivation formula for oil producing states.
Among those who canvassed this position is Professor Nwosu who pleaded with his colleagues not to take a decision that will aggravate the already chaotic security problem in the country. Speaking to newsmen when the committee adjourned for launch break on Tuesday, May 6, Nwosu maintained this position. But it remains to be seen if his pleas will be accepted by the committee members.
To worsen matters, while debate on the derivation was on, Yakassai was said to have introduced an angle, which strengthened the position of those against maintaining the status quo. According to our source, Yakassai, who leads the pro-Jonathan Northern Elders Council, had reminded his colleagues of how former President Olusegun Obasanjo used a committee he set up and headed by Tony Anenih then to resolve the off-shore/on-shore oil dichotomy impasse, which made Akwa Ibom State to lose most of its oil wells when Attah was governor.
A Northern delegate in the committee was overheard thanking Yakassai for coming up with that masterstroke which weakened the agitation of the pro-resource control group in the committee. At that crucial time, the absence of any member in the committee amounted to a big loss to the group he or she would have been with. Annkio Briggs was overheard complaining on phone of the absence of another Ijaw delegate in the committee who had the penchant of not being regular at the committee’s sittings.
“I am the only person who has never missed any of the sittings,” she lamented.
Though it was not very clear how the committee concluded on this combustive issue before adjourning for this week because of the three-day public holiday declared in Abuja by the federal government following the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Africa that held in the capital city, Nigerians will most likely witness more robust arguments and quarrels over the report that will finally be submitted by this committee when the conference delegates return to plenary.
An issue as resource control is certainly one area where it will be pretty difficult to find a meeting point between contending groups at the conference. Obviously, delegates, depending on what part of the country they come from, have taken hard stance on this matter and it remains to be seen how this will be resolved within the stipulated timeframe of the conference. Already there is the speculation of possible elongation of the conference duration by six weeks. Though the conference secretariat and even a large percentage of the delegates have denied it, there is hardly any way this extension will be avoided, if the conference must come with something tangible for the Nigerian people at the end of its sitting, analysts argue.
A lot of observers of the conference proceedings have argued, and rightly too, that there is no way the delegates, who spent one whole month discussing President Jonathan’s inaugural speech, will spend less than that timeframe to discuss recommendations of 20 committees.
