Yoruba Nation

• Lament North’s opposition to devolution of power

• Urhobo may take case over Jesse disaster to UN

• Delegate plans $1b demand for Niger Delta

LEADERS of the Yoruba nation have declared that regional autonomy is the minimum and irreducible demand of their people from the ongoing national conference.
They made the declaration as Urhobo nation resolved to take its case over the 1998 Jesse pipeline explosion that killed 1,016 people, and similar oil-induced disasters, to the United Nations in quest for redress and compensation.

Similarly, a delegate, Ms Annkio Briggs, has vowed to launch a campaign to demand $1 billion for the restoration of the oil rich area. She made the vow in reaction to alleged refusal of the Committee on Devolution of Powers to accept the demand of the Niger Delta people for a 50 percent derivation for the resources explored and exploited in their area.

The position of the Yoruba leaders was contained in a document sent to delegates at the conference. The document titled “Regional Autonomy…or Nothing” was also yesterday in Lagos circulated to journalists at a press conference addressed by a coalition of Yoruba nationality groups led by the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG).
Declaring the Yoruba position, Tokunbo Ajasin, son of the late Chief Adekunle Ajasin, former leader of the Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere and erstwhile governor of Ondo State, said the Yoruba people have a lot of hope in the conference to redress the current anomalous structure of the country.
Ajasin, speaking on behalf of the coalition, berated the Northern leaders who were said to have claimed that 80 percent of the country’s land mass belongs to the North and that it was the money from the North that was used to develop the oil sector.

His words: ”We are therefore baffled at the take-it-or-Ieave-it attitude of delegates from other ethnic nationalities, particularly the Northern delegates who circulated a document full of fallacies a few weeks ago. Those fallacies have now been exposed by the facts and figures contained in the publication we are unveiling today.”
Ajasin made it clear that the Yoruba would have no choice than to walk out of the federation if the conference failed to accede to what he said is the minimum demand of the Yoruba people.
The group also condemned the opposition of the North to the issue of regional autonomy. “It is inconceivable that northern leaders are the ones leading the campaign against devolution of power and restructuring of government. If any region needs a stronger federating unit with greater capacity to provide education, health, security, wealth creation and other social amenities, it is the North where strong links exist between the level of poverty and conscription of innocent youths into extremist tendencies. It appears Northern leaders are not concerned, and indeed have no plan for the teeming youth from the region, as long as they are able to continue clinging to their hold on power.”
Ajasin said the demand represented the wishes and aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the Yoruba people gathered from different fora over the years.

The document reads: “The Yoruba people of Nigeria hereby make the following demands: • Regionalism: States in Yoruba land want a regional government with its own constitution and unfettered political and fiscal autonomy, except on issues it agrees to cede to the Federal Government. The South West Region must include all Yoruba people outside the imposed artificial boundaries in Edo, Delta, Kogi and Kwara states;
• A negotiated legislative exclusive, concurrent and residual list;
• A unicameral legislature at the centre; details of the regional legislature shall be clearly set out in the constitution;
• A parliamentary form of government at the centre;
• The right to self determination on and up to the right to secede;
• A just and equitable taxation system that will treat the federating units with equality and better coordination at the federal level in order to eliminate the current rentier syndrome;
• Fiscal federalism and resource control: a system whereby a substantial part of the proceeds accruable from every federating unit will be retained and an agreed percentage contributed to the center by the federating units for the responsibility of the Federal Government;
• Establishment of Regional Police;
• A new people‘s constitution: the resolutions and conclusions of the 2014 National Conference shall lead to an autochthonous constitution, that is a home-grown and all inclusive draft that shall be submitted to the Nigerian electorate voting in a referendum; and
• Status of Lagos: Lagos will continue to be the economic nerve centre of Nigeria and the West African sub-Region, hence, there shall be an appropriate budgetary provision that is part of the First Line Charge in the Federation Account.”

The Yoruba leaders pointed out that they are not enforcing their demands on others. “Others are free to explore whatever suits them while we should be free to organise our governance the way it suits us.”
According to Ajasin, all Yoruba delegates at the conference are united on the region’s position and are poised to defend it.
He debunked claim that the Yoruba delegates are quarreling over creation of new state from the region, noting that under the regional structure being demanded by the Yoruba, each region would determine the number of states it wants or its own internal structure of governance.

The resolution on Jesse disaster was disclosed on Sunday evening in Ughelli, Delta State, by confab delegate, Prof G. G. Darah during the anniversary of the death of Major Isaac Adaka Boro, the acclaimed first militant who agitated for the development of the Niger Delta but was killed during the Nigerian civil war.
Darah, who delivered the key lecture at the event, alongside human rights activist, Mrs. Josephen Odumakin and Alhaji Mujahid Asari- Dokubo, convener of the Isaac Boro anniversary, said the first step before going to the United Nations is to alert Nigerians to the magnitude of the Jesse disaster and many similar ones via memos submitted to the national conference.
The second step, he disclosed, is for the Federal Government to set up a body of experts to compile an inventory of the number and gravity of ecological damage and ascertain the human casualties directly resulting from oil-induced disasters.
“This is what Nigeria did with the Ogoni case. But even without government report, the Urhobo will produce their own report and use it to support their appeal to the United Nations for monetary reparation/compensation for 55 years of oil-related holocaust in Urhobo land,” Darah said.
According to him, a team is presently collecting relevant information, pictures and other data towards achieving success in this regard. He urged all communities affected by the Jesse pipeline explosion of 1998 to come forward with data that would guide the team in the renewed quest.
Darah stated that the Urhobo have been perennial victim of oil- induced disasters. “In 1998, the Jesse holocaust occurred. The casualty figure was over 1,000. The Urhobo in Nigeria and abroad rallied, they set up relief fund of N500 as government (of Gen Abdusalam Abubakar rtd) refused to send relief.
“The Urhobo Foundation in Lagos sponsored the first Urhobo Economic Summit at PTI on the theme of 40 years of Oil Exploration in Urhobo. In 1999, fire at Shell pipelines destroyed prime forests, fishes and farms in Ekakpamre. The fires along pipelines in Okpe land s are familiar to you.”

Darah disclosed that memoranda by Delta State and the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) to the national conference are demanding payment of monetary compensation for ecological disasters and losses of human beings in 55 years of the oil industry
He said the Ogoni disaster received the international attention it got because of the dogged manner which the Ogoni people pursued their case.
Darah described Adaka Boro as a man of vision who foresaw the marginalization of the Niger Delta and died in the process to defend the region.
He warned that the people of the oil-rich South-South could break way if the North continues to behave as if Nigeria is its property. He alleged that the 19 states of the North are not contributing anything to the nation’s wealth yet feeding fat on the nation’s wealth even more than the states producing the wealth.

Briggs, who is representing the Federal Government, and a member of the committee, spoke at the weekend at a ceremony organized by the South East, South South Professionals of Nigeria (SESSPN) to honour their delegates participating in the 2014 national conference in Abuja.
“I believe that we should have 50 percent derivation. But that was refused blindly. I was even more horrified that everybody in that committee, including people from the south east, south west and South South and the other regions, except me, rejected that position. They all agreed that we should not go above 13 percent. I refused and I am going to do a minority report on that.
“I am going to bring up a campaign that is going to demand from the oil companies and the Federal Government for the sake of restoring the Niger Delta region and any other region that has been devastated by exploration and exploitation of oil and gas. We are going to begin a campaign and demand based on a report that was conducted by outsiders, that we must have $1 trillion from both the Federal Government and the oil companies based on the UBEB report to begin to fix our environment.
“Any other thing outside of that will not send the right message. I still want to maintain that I will never accept a situation that tells me that I can only have 13 percent of what I am bringing and the person who is telling me is bringing absolutely nothing.

Also speaking at the forum, Chief Chris Eluemunoh, a delegate representing the South East said it will not augur well for the country if the national conference fails to accede to some of the region’s demands before the end of the parley.
“If we walk out of Abuja at the end of this conference without anything, there will be no Nigeria. This is not a threat but a statement of fact,” he said.


Source: The Guardian