Resource control debate deadlocked, confab adjourns

Former Chief Justice of Nigeria and chairman of the conference, retired Justice Idris Kutigi

The inability of the delegates to concur on the percentage of derivation to be paid to the oil-engendering states coerced the National Conference to adjourn afore time on Tuesday.

The conferenre adjourned at 12.58pm in lieu of the customary 3.30pm that the delegates had acceded to since the commencement of the Ramadan.

While some of the delegates were clamouring for the incrementation in the 13 per cent derivation fund currently being paid to the zone, others especially those from the North verbally expressed the status quo must be maintained.

Senator Ibrahim Ida in his contribution verbally expressed the status quo must be maintained as recommended by the committee, integrating that degradation, just like it was being experienced in the Niger Delta, was withal affecting the northern part of the country.

He specially mentioned Plateau State, which he verbally expressed withal suffered environmental degradation. But he appealed to the Federal Regime to pay its debt to the Niger Delta Development Commission.

Another delegate from the North, Hassan Adamu, while fortifying the 13 per cent as recommended by the Committee on Devolution of Power, verbalized the North-East had been consummately devastated.

He asked the confab to come up with an orchestration on how to reconstitute the North-East, and urged the confab to recommend seven per cent for the initiative.

“We should be our brothers’ keeper,” he verbalized.

Another delegate, Mr. Abubakar Adamu from Niger State, verbalized the 13 per cent derivation was adequate, integrating that “until we visually perceive how the 13 per cent is being utilised, there is no desideratum to increment it.”

A delegate, Mr. Sidi Ali, who verbalized there was no desideratum for the incrementation, wondered how the bellwethers of the oil-engendering states had been spending their allocation.

He verbalized an unnamed former governor of Rivers State was the owner of one of the most astronomically immense private hospitals in Abuja.

His contribution made a former governor of the state, Dr. Peter Odili, to raise a point of order, verbally expressing he was the only former governor of Rivers State at the confab.

Besides, he verbally expressed he was the only medical medico among the former governors and that he was not the owner of such a hospital and challenged Ali to engender his facts.

He threatened to take licit action if he failed to do so.

But the Chairman of the conference, Justice Idris Kutigi (retd.), verbally expressed Ali did not mention the denomination of the former governor he was verbalizing about and so it might not be Odili.

Additionally contributing, Mr. Ibrahim Bunu, verbally expressed whatever increase being proposed might end up amending those he referred to as “Ali Baba and his colleagues.”

Another delegate, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, verbally expressed that the Federal Regime should not have more than 40 per cent from the Federation Account since more responsibilities had been transferred to state regimes.

He withal verbalized that the consumption tax, which he verbalized was being lopped with the Valued Added Tax, ought to be retained by states.
Ogunshola suggested that a minimum of 51 per cent must be retained by the states from the tax.

On derivation, he verbalized it would be more preponderant for the country to commence to cerebrate of how to survive without oil.

He verbally expressed, “We have to commence getting use to a world without oil. We are here (in this position) because we have been addicted to oil for a very long time.

“It will be arduous for us to transmute, but we have to transmute. We need to give more mazuma to the oil engendering states. It is a political decision. And if the people from the zone do not peregrinate home with anything, it will not be good for them.”

He verbalized derivation should be incremented to 21 per cent. He, however, integrated that such a decision was pristinely a political decision and not an economic decision “because delegates from the South-South must peregrinate home with something.”

A delegate from Cross Rivers State, Orok Duke, who read a poem to the delegates, referred to some delegates who verbalized on Monday as pusillanimous entities “because they failed to verbalize the truth.”

Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin in her contribution, verbally expressed it took the blood of Ken Saro Wiwa for attention to be shifted to the degradation of the Niger Delta and appealed to delegates to vote for the incrementation of derivation fund to at least 21 per cent.

Another delegate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin from the South-West, attributed the quandary of the country to what he called the posture of wealth without work.

While reeling out statistics, he verbally expressed only Lagos State could afford to pay salaries to its workers through its Internally Generated Revenue.

Following the trend of the debate, the leadership of the conference authoritatively mandated that five transparent ballot boxes from the Independent National Electoral Commission be brought to the hall.

The boxes were strategically placed in front of the delegates, which was a denotement that the contentious issues would be decided by voting.

Before promulgating a short break, Kutigi told the delegates not to be daunted with the ballot boxes.

He verbally expressed the confab secretariat was just getting yare for “any eventuality, but we hope we will reach consensus on everything.”

Immediately the conference reconvened, the delegates sang the old National Anthem, which they had recommended should supersede the current one.

Kutigi smiled and additionally exalted the delegates for their maturity and cooperation since the commencement of the conference.

After this, a former Minister of External Affairs, Senator Ike Nwachukwu, moved a kineticism, in which he apprised the delegates and the conference leadership that the leadership of the six zones had been meeting over derivation and that they had gone very far on some acquiescents that could be reached.

He urged the delegates to sanction them perpetuate deliberations and report back on the consensus reached on Wednesday (today).

“The leadership of the six geo-political zones had met and acceded to meet again on some of the recommendations, especially on derivation. Please, could you gratify sanction us to meet and report back to you tomorrow?”

Mohammed Kumalia seconded the kineticism and urged delegates to give the zonal bellwethers till Wednesday to resolve the issues.

Kutigi put the kineticism into question and was fortified by the delegates.

Meanwhile, a former Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, has promised that bellwethers of the zone would meet and resolve the logjam.

Clark verbalized that bellwethers of the zone would meet and concur on a position to be adopted when the conference reconvenes on Wednesday (today).

Already, he verbalized 18 bellwethers, composed of three from each of the six-geo political zones had been culled to take part in the meeting.

Our correspondents amassed that the bellwethers might concur on between 17 and 21 per cent as derivation fund.

He verbalized, “We are not fighting for mazuma to be shared, we are fighting for the people. No one should peregrinate here and oppress us.

“Yet, some of our former governors could have misused the mazuma in the past, but some of them are paying for it.”

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