By Godwin Ijediogor (South-South Bureau Chief, Asaba)
President of Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof. Benjamin Okaba, has said the Ijaw nation and the people of the Niger Delta welcome the discovery of oil in any part of the country, particularly in the majority ethnic areas in the North, but says he hopes the people are not being deceived.
According to him, if major ethnic nationalities discover oil in their areas and get the Niger Delta experience, it would help them understand the need to review the derivation formula and the need to give back to places the nation derives benefits from.
“But we hope that people are not being deceived because the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) provides that 30 per cent should go into oil exploration of marginal fields.
“If it is just going there to prospect without getting any kind of tangible results, that will be another level of wickedness.”
The leader of the umbrella organisation of the Ijaw nation decried the level of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta as a result of oil and gas exploitation and exploration over the years.
He said: “If you go back to the issue of derivation, when groundnut, cocoa and palm oil were the mainstay of the country’s economy, it was 100 per cent derivation, at some point, it was 50 per cent.
“It was when the situation changed and we now have oil as the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy, coming from the minority, that the revenue sharing formula came down so low to even 1.3 per cent derivation at a time.”
Source: The Guardian