DapoBear:

No one has yet justified why the enormous amount of resources that the Delta currently receives is so badly misspent. I understand, you want a larger piece of the cake. But why are you wasting the slices of the cake you are currently getting?



The rulers are not accountable to the ruled.
The rulers of the states had often been agents of the federal exploiters.
Unresponsive to local concerns. Limiting federal and empowering state might help.

DapoBear:

No one has yet justified why the enormous amount of resources that the Delta currently receives is so badly misspent. I understand, you want a larger piece of the cake. But why are you wasting the slices of the cake you are currently getting?

Any solution for the Delta will require addressing both the money they are earning and the money they fritter away. You cannot address the former alone. Yet that seems to be the primary focus of this thread.

DapoBear:

No one has yet justified why the enormous amount of resources that the Delta currently receives is so badly misspent. I understand, you want a larger piece of the cake. But why are you wasting the slices of the cake you are currently getting?

Any solution for the Delta will require addressing both the money they are earning and the money they fritter away. You cannot address the former alone. Yet that seems to be the primary focus of this thread.

DapoBear:

No one has yet justified why the enormous amount of resources that the Delta currently receives is so badly misspent. I understand, you want a larger piece of the cake. But why are you wasting the slices of the cake you are currently getting?

Any solution for the Delta will require addressing both the money they are earning and the money they fritter away. You cannot address the former alone. Yet that seems to be the primary focus of this thread.

birdman:

The problem is, you can't address the waste in ND out of the context of waste and corruption in Nigeria. God knows pretty much every ND leader that has come out since Saro Wiwa has been found to be part of the colonisers themselves.

PhysicsQED:

Perhaps I misread this then, so you could explain it to me, I've never seen any joint operation between the federal government and foreign companies where the Nigerian government got up to 90%, and in fact that figure sounds very implausible. Surely those companies know that they could get a better deal, as they are the ones doing the real work and with the real expertise. But then again, if I see the actual facts/figures, I'll believe it.

PhysicsQED:

Oil reforms? Do tell!. . .Would this be something like, say, 50% derivation? Or revoking the Land Use Act? Or would it be mere government paper-shuffling and phrase-mongering? I would just like to know, as an objective observer, what reforms the boys in the Delta should be waiting for thieving incompetent, and unconcerned goons in Abuja to pass.

PhysicsQED:

I think this is a case of "not doing proper research and making really brainless comments." The Federal Government (central government) gets 87% of oil revenue. The remaining 9 oil producing states share the remaining 13% according to the amount of oil produced by that state. For example, Delta state gets 3.9% and Bayelsa gets 2.3%. Or do you think 9 x 13% < 100%?

PhysicsQED:

But they are "their people." By helping themselves to profits, they're helping their community, no? Sure there's environmental damage, but that would be there anyways and the government will never do anything about any environmental damage because the people controlling government are in some far away desert and those not in that desert are directly beholden, or aligned with, those in that desert. If they can't go about their lives normally due to all the environmental damage already on ground before the bunkering, why not be able to make a profit?

Vavavoom:

The story of Nigeria unfortunately bears a striking similarity with that of the parable of the good Samaritan in the bible. People who can rise above greed and be sympathetic amongst us are yet to travel the leadership route. Instead we've replaced white colonial masters with internal ones.
It is foolhardy to expect rogue creations from Abuja who fill leadership positions in the ND to be different from their lords. Governance to these lot is like paying royalty from earnings( state allocation) to the center(Abuja). How the indigenes fair is neither their care nor concern. Ibori, Odili, Alams, Obong Attah, Lucky and co were never answerable to the people but Abuja. Each one was engaged in systemic resource mismanagement that enables self aggrandisement with ''extended courtesies'' to Abuja. Chrisbenogor's NNPC analogy is perfect for how things generally work in Nigeria nay ND.
In truth the custodians of the ND are the creation of the Nigerian state-people whose motive collide in agreement to rob us all of meaningful development irrespective of cardinal location.

Like I have said in the past when we as a people are ready to take back our country we will wake from our slumber, rise above ethnicity and pay the ultimate price for freedom from internal colonisation and create fucntional governance structures which will enable development to thrive, '', in here, ethnicity blinds us to the common good we search; it is prevalent in our write-ups so much so, we fail to see the lift in another's suggestion'' Make we rise.

Vavavoom:

, in here, ethnicity blinds us to the common good we search; it is prevalent in our write-ups so much so, we fail to see the lift in another's suggestion'' Make we rise.

What's a "subtantial chunk"? 2.4% per state? ((1/36) x 87%)

Why lie?

Parasitic fears have some people concocting fairy tales.

texazzpete:

That's why i ask you to do proper research. Those figures are from the split of 'profit oil'.
Now, let's take 100 barrels of oil as an example.
In the Joint Venture situation i mentioned earlier, as soon as the oil comes out, the Federal Government take 80% off as Royalties.

That 80 out of 100 barrels.

Of the remaining 20% (20 barrels), the entire sum is then taxed. Oil Industry taxes are not known for being negligible  . Let's assume for this case, that the tax is 25%. So that's 5 barrels gone and 15 barrels remaining. And that's 85% (85 barrels to Nigeria).
Now after the taxes are applied, the investors (IOCs, NOC) are allowed to recover their cost from the remaining. Let's say 2 % (2 barrels goes towards cost recovery).

The last remaining 13 barrels (13%) is known as the PROFIT OIL, and is the amount that is now shared according to the JV stake (i.e NNPC 55%, Shell 30% etc)

So at the end of the day, out of the 100 barrels recovered, around 90% ends up with the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I don't know why this sounds so implausible to you, this is rather in line with what happens around the world and Nigeria is no exception. The oil business yields so much money that even the 10% left for the IOCs is still rather lucrative.

I don't know why many people have this idea of an almost equal split in oil revenue between the FG and IOCs. The FG gets the bulk of the oil money and the minimum of the blame. That's a win-win situation for them  

PS: As stated, the cost recovery and the post royalty tax splits  i used are assumptions for this discussion. Don't take them as canon. The Royalty figure is fixed at 80% though.

texazzpete:

Don't be mischievous. By 'Oil Reforms', anyone remotely interested in Nigeria should know i'm talking about the Petroleum Industry Bill. This Bill is an unstoppable juggernaut at the moment, and it WILL be passed.
The bill formerly had a provision for 10% equity share of the proceeds from oil for the host communities. This has recently been changed (for legal and practical reasons) to a dividend share to the communities depending on the value of the hydrocarbon in their communities.

http://www.nigeriannewsservice.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1577:fg-jettisons-10-equity-for-oil-communities&Itemid=231&tmpl=component&print=1

Yeah, go ahead and deliberately misconstrue my statements. That make you feel smarter?

Federalism, Fiscal Centralism and the Realities of Democratisation in Nigeria: The Case of the Niger Delta by Edlyne E. Anugwom

Overview of the History of Revenue Allocation in Nigeria
The derivation principle was first mooted by the Phillipson Commission of 1946 that saw it as the principle through which a region would benefit from its non-declared revenue according to the proportion of its contribution to the central revenue (Adebayo, 1988).  Despite the fact that this principle was equally challenged early enough by the Northern delegates to the General Conference on the review of the Richards Constitution at Ibadan in 1950, it was retained. Between 1954 and 1957, the derivation principle became the chief allocation principle mainly as a result of the dominance of Nigeria�s export market by primary products from the three major ethnic groups especially the cocoa rich Western region. Also in 1957, a new revenue commission, the Raisman and Tress Commission argued for a reduction of the fiscal gap or imbalance between the Western and other regions. Thus, the committee narrowed the scope of the application of derivation by setting up the Distributive Pool Account (DPA) for other taxes not declared regional or federal. These were made up of mining royalties (30%) and general import revenue (30%) that are to be allocated to the regional governments.

The Raisman and Tress Commission recommendations formed the basis of revenue allocation in Nigeria until the late 1960s. The effort of the next Dina Commission that recommended a federal control of the larger part of revenues was brought to nought by the non-implementation of its recommendations. This effectively created a lacuna that enabled the military government to centralise revenue allocation. This attempt was given legal backing through Decrees 15 of 1967; 13 of 1970 and 6 of 1975 all of which established a fiscal policy centralised at the federal level. These Decrees were hinged on a progressive enlargement of the DPA and the reduction of derivation. This really marked the advent of acute fiscal centralism that reached its climax during the authoritarian Babangida/Abacha government between 1983 and 1997.

The history of revenue allocation in Nigeria especially in connection with the derivation principle and the Niger Delta problem has been quite intriguing. Prior to the emergence of oil as a serious foreign exchange earner, the revenue allocation principle was mainly on the basis of derivation as already stated. Even though oil export began in Nigeria in 1958 it was not until 1980 that the share of oil revenue in the national income rose to 80% (see, Ikein and Briggs-Anigboh, 1998) from about 27% in 1970. Thus oil became prominent in Nigeria�s revenue from 1980 and has been on the increase since then, constituting over 90% of national revenue nowadays. However, while the revenue from oil was increasing the percentage of revenue allocated through derivation to the states on whose soil the oil was being produced kept decreasing.

At the onset, the oil communities enjoyed the 50% derivation that was also in operation during the heyday of primary products exports. But this 50% was at a time the oil only contributed about 3% of national revenue (that was before 1971). This 50% was reduced by the DPA Decree No.13 of 1970 to 45%. The DPA is usually distributed by the federal government to the states or regions using mainly the criteria of size and population. The DPA was further increased by Decree No. 6 of 1975 to 80% thereby leaving the states with oil with only 20% of the revenue.

The 1979 Constitution that conferred on the federal government with rights over both onshore and offshore minerals enabled the drastic slashing of the derivation allocation to a paltry 5% by the Shehu Shagari government. This was further reduced to 3% by the military government of Ibrahim Babangida. The total picture which emerges from the above is that the powers that be allowed the derivation principle a larger scope only when the revenue from oil was not massive (1965 � 1970) but the moment oil jumped far ahead of all other export commodities in revenue yield especially from 1980, the derivation share plummeted through the issuance of Decrees and other arbitrary laws especially by the military that held sway for most of the period.

You may have the mental image of hundreds or thousands of youths boring into pipelines and siphoning away crude to support themselves and their families and to improve their region. That's naive. As will all organized criminal syndicates, the bulk of the money goes to the overlord, while the guys doing the menial work get a pittance. Either way, these criminals can be found in nightclubs frittering away their stolen cash, while their bosses funnel their money outside Nigeria.
As i said before, a 'Robin Hood' scenario would have been welcome. But that's hardly the Nigerian way, is it?  

okooyinbo:

A substantial chunk is a substantial chunk. It is not only the states that get allocation, the LGs also get allocations from the rest 87%.

If anyone is telling lies, it is people who are blinded by their greediness.

Before oil was discovered, other peoples money was used to build Infastructure in the ND.

It is very certain that even if the ND get 1000% of the oil revenue, the situation of the masses will never change over there. The leaders and especially the led need a new orientation.

The people have to learn to fight to make the leaders accountable,

and not just to have a piece of the cake.

Only then will Nigeria move forward.

okooyinbo:

A substantial chunk is a substantial chunk. It is not only the states that get allocation, the LGs also get allocations from the rest 87%. If anyone is telling lies, it is people who are blinded by their greediness. Before oil was discovered, other peoples money was used to build Infastructure in the ND. It is very certain that even if the ND get 1000% of the oil revenue, the situation of the masses will never change over there. The leaders and especially the led need a new orientation. The people have to learn to fight to make the leaders accountable, and not just to have a piece of the cake. Only then will Nigeria move forward.

Nigerians are pretty greedy people and thats why there is corruption everywhere.

The Royal Niger Company was a mercantile company chartered by the British government in the nineteenth century. It formed a basis of the modern state of Nigeria.

But although palm-oil and palm kernels accounted for 80 to 90 per cent of total value of Nigerian exports in 1900, with the expansion of new exports of groundnuts, cocoa and tin they declined to only 47 per cent of exports in 1929.

-Pages 454 - 455, Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960 By Lewis H. Gann, Peter Duignan

Busy_body:

Hmmm, the internal "colonial rule" has suddenly become an issue only just because the money is now being diverted to China and India Awwww, God bless that former US Ambassador's bleeding heart, I feel his pain, I do, indeed, psssffft

Yes, but not any more than other states, so how are they getting a "substantial chunk"? They're actually getting a "regular chunk"! Grin

In fact, Kano state has 44 LG's when it doesn't have the population to merit such. It would actually be fair to say that Kano is getting a substantial chunk, but certainly not an ND state.

Indeed. But how do we define greediness? Unwillingness to be ripped off or willingness to rip others off?

When and where? Where was this infrastructure built with other people's money? What is this infrastructure that you are referring to?

Are you talking about Cocoa? What specific infrastructure did Western region Cocoa build in the ND? Western region cocoa couldn't even build infrastructure in the non-Yoruba parts of the Western region. Or Ground nuts? If so I should remind you that palm oil was in the ND and the economically deficient North had to be rescued from financial ruin by the colonials by amalgamating them with these palm oil producing areas earlier so should people now claim that ND money was used to build Northern people's infrastructure without mentioning actual specific infrastructure

Are national leaders not accountable or allowed to be fought for the 13% scam that they're perpetrating?

So you admit that there's a cake Grin. Now that's established we have to ask ourselves, why do other people want any part of the cake for free, when the ingredients are not sourced from their kitchen. That sounds like pastry theft. Grin

Admittedly the leadership in that region has been lacking in quality. That seems more like a national thing than anything though.

okooyinbo:

. . .
For instance, the port of Portharcourt was not built with crude oil money. The rail network to the port was not built with oil money. There abound numerous other examples, but I would not want to delve into that. Well, the cocoa and rubber plantations of the old western region did built some infrastructures not only in the West, but also somewhere else. And mind you, Portharcourt got it port not because of the Enugu coal but also due to the cotton and groundnut, as well as the Tin and columbite from the North. Yeah, you had palm oil, but the bulk of Palm oil production was actually in the old Midwest, the old Cross River State, and Igboland not the Niger Delta (Rivers, Bayelsa states). The Oil palm does not thrive in a swampy enviroment. I am also a swamp dweller, I should know.
. . .

Badly told lies. Cool

Before oil was discovered, the ND was exporting palm oil and rubber. In fact, the formation of the country called Nigeria is 100% due to the palm oil trade.
The Royal Niger company traded almost solely in palm oil and slaves. The bastar'd, Lugard was a representative of the Royal Niger company and the Royal Niger company is what later became Nigeria.

The Niger Delta has always built other parts of Nigeria, never the other way.

So you describe the Niger Delta as Rivers and Bayelsa only?! Shocked You must have failed geography.
The geographical Niger Delta consists of Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta (take a hint from the name).

As for the heart of the palm oil trade, dude look no further than Brass in Bayelsa. For your arguments that most of the palm oil and rubber came from the Midwest, please just open a history book. Oil Palm was grown right across the SE and SS and in any event Delta state is in the ND and used to be in the Midwest (same goes for Edo).

There is no point going on with your guesswork, cos for any guess you make, we can provide solid counter facts. Money from outside the ND has never built anything in the ND, rather that whole area has been Nigeria's breadbasket from time immemorial.

okooyinbo:

If you can subsist on the allocation you get, then it is substantial.

Admittedly, some states are getting more than they deserve, but hey it is not the fault of the politicians. The Army is to blame for that situation.

Anyway, I beg to differ on the population of Kano state. Up till now, there has not been any concrete evidence put forward that suggest Kano state indeed does not have such a high population.

Mind you, it does not mean it deserves those large number of LGs though. And now back to substinence: Since the allocation to Rivers state still dwarfs that of Kano, my arguement still remains that they (ND) get a substantial share of the resources.

Greediness according to one dictionary could be understood as: "Excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves."  Hope this answers your question adequately?

There is no society / country where only one part get all resources. Not even during the terrible dictator times of Abacha. 100% resource allocation is a fanciful dream that will never materialize.

Others have to eat too you know?

For instance, the port of Portharcourt was not built with crude oil money. The rail network to the port was not built with oil money.

There abound numerous other examples, but I would not want to delve into that. Well, the cocoa and rubber plantations of the old western region did built some infrastructures not only in the West, but also somewhere else.

And mind you, Portharcourt got it port not because of the Enugu coal but also due to the cotton and groundnut, as well as the Tin and columbite from the North.

Yeah, you had palm oil, but the bulk of Palm oil production was actually in the old Midwest, the old Cross River State, and Igboland not the Niger Delta (Rivers, Bayelsa states). The Oil palm does not thrive in a swampy enviroment. I am also a swamp dweller, I should know.

The people needs it more than the leaders. They are more than below par. If the society were not as bad, we would not have been producing bad leaders incessantly. I guess nobody wants to die, but we all wanna go to heaven. Anyway, if we are sure there is a heaven, maybe we would all gladly die sha*IRONY*. Back to topic! The people MUST first remove the log in their own eyes before they point to the dust in their leaders eyes. New orientation for all.

Atleast somebody managed to push 13 percent through, he should be commended. We remember that there used to be someone who eliminated genuine freedom fighters on trumped up charges in a kangaroo tribunal. It helps sometimes to aknowledge a right deed no matter how little it is. It motivates to do more.

ola olabiy:

Dayo. So, you understand international politics welu welu.

This is incredible. You are right.
He was in Nigeria but he didn't say anything. Effing hypo

okooyinbo:

I did not do that. If I did, I will definitely state it more clearer. The term Niger Delta is a relatively new one in the Nigerian discuss. I just replied to what somebody said about palm oil originating from the Niger delta. Our discussion was based on the pre oil era. The Niger delta in strict geographical sense is comprised of Bayelsa, delta and Rivers state. Economically, its catchment area does include many more states. My friend, I am sure I will beat you hands down in the Geography not only of Nigeria, but also of the world. Take my words for it. An A1 in WAEC in Geography should convince you, even if the world has evolved a lot since I sat for my WAEC joint School Leaving certificate / GCE.

I said the bulk of the palm oil production originates not from ND (specifically Rivers, Bayelsa). I did not say only these states makes up the Niger delta. For your information Delta and Edo States were long part of the West.

I maintain therefore that the Niger delta has also benefited from the other parts of Nigeria. It is not just a one way thing.

And btw, what facts are you shouting about? Whats fact have you provided?

whether, as a result of the visit paid by the chairman of the Royal Niger Company to the Niger Delta. . .

-Page 338, Great Britain. Parliament, William Cobbett, Thomas Curson Hansard - 1819

Busy_body:

My most favourite English Lecturer Sir, you have Ileke-idi and co to blame for this recent development oh, I say I nor wan use my freshly discovered brain and I know wan know book, but they keep forcing me to rub shoulders and mind with them as if na by force I prefer knocking boots jare Can you help me punish them Sir, I can back them whilst you flog them for me





[s]Chei, for the first time in my life, see me consulting the Theusarus and using Nairaland's spellcheck facilities and previewing my posts a million times before posting Oh na who come talk say make i mistakenly get lost and wander into the Education section come jam Professor Ola Olabiyi now, ehn, gosh [/s]

Lol, I think you know this sentence wasn't  particularly clear when you typed it. Subsistence does imply "substantial". If anything it's the opposite. If you can only subsist, then what you have or are being given is not substantial.

, Are the civilian politicians incapable of changing the structure of the state?

Perhaps. As far as I can tell, they determine the population of Kano state by just asserting that it's slightly more populous than Lagos state by adjusting the numbers whenever the population of Lagos state is counted. Since they (the Nigerian government) acknowledge that the city of Kano itself is not half the size of the city of Lagos, their whole claim is based on asserting that every single other area of Kano state is verys highly populated. Once again, not impossible, but the very fact that they're trying to portray the place as bigger than Lagos in population is what makes me thing the figures are cooked. If they had settled for second or third best, I might not even be doubting that they do indeed have one of the most highly populated states.

But I don't think a credible census has ever been performed in Nigeria, including the very first one which gave the Northerners the supposedly higher population that no doubt influenced later censuses.

Rivers state gets an allocation from the 87% that "dwarfs" what Kano gets? Or are you including what they get from the 13% as well here for Rivers? What they get from the 13% is even less than what is due to them if it is from their oil.

Who determines what another group of people need or deserve? You or me? How about the group themselves determining what they need or deserve.

My question is not answered because I don't see how the Western region was allowed to use cocoa profits mostly on themselves and the Northern region allowed to use groundnut mostly on themselves. Using the logic now being applied to the ND, who said that the West and North should have been allowed to spend the profits from their resources primarily on themselves? Who said they needed to or that they deserved those profits? The Western region was even noted as being ahead of the other regions financially in an article I quoted above. Aren't they therefore extremely greedy for ever building up more regional wealth than they "needed" to subsist? Instead they were building all sorts of stuff they didn't need, setting up TV in West Africa, etc. who says they need or deserved TV?

What if I feel that if somebody in the Middle Belt or Eastern region can't yet have fancy new-fangled television then the Western region shouldn't have TV and that to spend their excess money setting up a TV station they are being greedy and hoarding wealth obtained from resources from their region only for their development? What if I demand in the 50s/60s that the Western region cease and desist from all expenditures aimed at obtaining television on these grounds? You see how ridiculous I would be to make such a request yet you and some others are making essentially the same claim with regard to the ND.

Who says giving them all the profits from their oil amounts to giving them profits from all the resources? That's a stretch. There are other resources. Limestone is only found in certain parts of the country and if limestone was more valuable than oil I wouldn't start claiming that part with limestone must carry the whole country on its back.

50% was what they were originally calling for. Not 100%. So they seem to be aware of this. However there is not actually any practical reason why it could not be 100% for every state, except that there is currently a parasitic scam mentality going on.

They can use either their own immediate resources, or their own hard work to feed themselves. Beaf made a thread in this forum "Your state is rich!" which clarified that every state had mineral resources. (https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-342885.0.html) If "Others" are not willing to invest in developing exports or productive uses of those resources, why should those who have an easier and more valuable mineral to work with have to eat less than they might be able to?

Of course they were not built with revenue from oil money.

Where else? The West was stingy with using its resources to build even within the West, but what I should note is that the DPA was only implemented in taking away part of their regional money (not cocoa money, anyways) and leaving it to federal use but not necessarily regional infrastructural use as you are claiming with no proof. Please state the infrastructure that was built in the ND with non-ND money.

Could you substantiate this claim about groundnut and columbite building Port Harcourt?

So Delta state is not ND because it was in the Midwest? This makes no sense to me.

Perhaps, but it's not clear to me that generally good people must produce good leaders if the atmosphere of corruption and cover-ups is allowed to reign over the whole country or that corrupt, evil people-if whole groups of people actually exist that could be blatantly labeled evil and corrupt- will necessarily produce bad leaders in a good society with an atmosphere of transparency over the nation and with upright political parties with actual ideals.

It isn't a "right deed" though. It's a scam. It should be 50%, as it was in the 1950's. The people who "pushed 13 percent through" are actually ND leaders who were calling for much more than 13%  but met with stiff opposition from parasitic quarters and had to settle for a tiny increase instead. What is there to be acknowledged about a group of people deigning to give one a small fraction of what rightfully belongs to one and thinking they (that group) are being so generous while doing so?

Dude, the more you speak the more ignorant you come across. I have shown you with unimpeachable figures that money from outside the ND has never been used to build anything in the ND. Indeed, palm oil accounted for 90% of Nigeria's exports at one time (deja vu); in return, all your arguments have turned out to be mere gossip and guesswork. Rubbish.

Please, don't ever make the claim that Edo and Delta are part of the West, we fought a hard battle to free ourselves from that marriage; that battle for freedom gave us the Midwest.

The last time someone foolishly said that the Niger Delta is new terminology, I provided references to the phrase from the 19th century (bear in mind we are in the 21st century). Cure your ignorance with this:

And of course, you are now singing a strange song about WAEC! Who cares?! Grin

Dude, never talk trash about things you don't know. Someone might just thoroughly sink your boat. Ok, whats the next thing you heard from Iya Basira's akara shop about the ND? Its lecture time!