Is Boko Haram a Bargaining Chip in the North's Desire For Increased Revenue From Oil / 2015?

Most Nigerians failed to read between the lines when Buba Galadima, National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change and right hand man of the party's presidential candidate in last year's presidential elections, Muhammadu Buhari, told the BBC that Boko Haram was more popular in certain parts of the North than the government gave it credit for.

In that Late December 2011 interview (click here for the interview) Buba Galadima had said "The people are sympathetic to certain principles and ideas," he told the BBC. "If people feel they are being denied anything or an injustice is being meted out to them then there is a likelihood that they will take the law into their own hands and help themselves."

Mr Galadima, who is from near Damaturu, where Boko Haram originally sprang from, raised the case of the former militants from the oil-rich Niger Delta who were given generous financial packages from the government to keep them out of trouble.

"Why didn't the president crush the Niger Deltans? That's a questions a lot of people in this part of the country are asking," he said.

"Instead they are being rewarded for the economic destruction they brought Nigeria. Why can't the same be true for Boko Haram?"

In the last couple of weeks prominent individuals and groups from the North have initiated a coordinated campaign to agitate for an increased share of oil revenue from the Niger Delta. This strategy has been too coordinated to be a coincidence and the first salvo was fired by the governor of the CBN, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who in an interview with the Financial Times of London on the fringes of the World Economic Forum that the 13% derivation being paid to South South states is one of the major causative reasons for the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency.

His exact words at that time were as follows "There is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence."

"When you look at the figures and look at the size of the population in the north, you can see that there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions. Those states simply do not have enough money to meet basic needs while some states have too much money.

"The imbalance is so stark because the state still depends on oil for more than 80 per cent of its revenues"

When a stunned nation was still in shock wondering how a public servant could utter those words, the same Sanusi Lamido Sanusi then 'donated' 100 million Naira of public funds to his home state of Kano as the CBN's contribution after the state suffered an attack from Boko Haram.

Soon after this, the Chairman of the Northern States Governor's Forum, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State came out only to call for more oil money to be sent up North pledging that the current revenue formula was skewed against the North.

His words were “The revenue allocation formula should be looked at. We are hoping that within 2012, there would be discussions and review of the allocation formula.

“But there are other issues that would come. For example, there were oil wells that were over 200 kilometres away of the shore of the country. Those ones before the passage of law by the National Assembly were supposed to be oil wells for the whole country.

“But now, they have been made to be given only to the contiguous states in addition to the 13 per cent derivation. So, if you look at that, you will say that it will not serve everybody well if certain parts of the country are not doing well while some parts are doing exceptionally well. So, THE PRESSURE WILL CONTINUE until we are able to find a solution.”

Many Nigerians are still wondering what Babangida Aliyu meant by "THE PRESSURE"?

When his call was vociferously rejected by governors from the South south, home of Nigeria's oil production, Babangida Aliyu remained adamant and said no one could intimidate the North over its demand for more oil wealth.

After Sanusi and Aliyu had needed their salvo, the nation woke up to find that some elements in the North had set up a body called Concerned Northern Leaders. This group NaijaPundit gathered was set up by hard liners in the North to counter calls for a Sovereign National Conference as well as put pressure on the political infrastructure of the nation to ensure that a Northern emerges as president in 2015.

In the first salvo fired by the CNL, it's convener, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, granted an interview to the Sun Newspapers where he said that the North is ready for Nigeria's break up. He however insisted that the North would lay claim to Yoruba speaking areas of Kwara and Kogi states as well as Abuja (click here for Junaid's interview).

Many pundits had read that interview as an attempt to intimidate progressive elements who were demanding for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference and get the Yoruba proponents of the call for an SNC to count the cost of their agitation before it became too late.. In that interview, Dr. Junaid dropped with bile and scorn on proponents of the SNC.

If Nigerians thought that the first salvo from the CNL was bad, the next salvo fired this past Thursday was a bomb shell. After meeting in Asokoro, Abuja, Dr. Junaid read a communique insisting that the revenue formula must be reviewed because the 13% derivation to the South South was hurting the people of the region. According to the Concerned Northern Leaders, indigenes of oil-producing states have become victims because the revenue accruing to their states “is far beyond their executive capacity to manage".

Dr. Junaid in the said communique then incredibly called for those funds that currently accrue to the Niger Delta to be plowed to other regions most notably the North!

However, Dr. Junaid failed to tell Nigeria's that what Nigeria's founding fathers agreed with the British at independence was that each region should control its resources and that 50% of the resources in each region was kept by the region, 25% shared with other regions wile 25% is paid to the central government.

But a greater shock came the way of Nigerians when the Northern Elders Political Leaders Forum, which came into being in 2010 as an amalgamation headed by Adamu Ciroma to wrest power from president Jonathan in favor of a Northerner resurrected and began holding meetings. The first meeting was held a week ago at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja. A follow up meeting was held between Thursday the 15th and yesterday, Friday the 16th of March.

In their communique released yesterday after a meeting at the Maizube farm residence of former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, the group said they would Bring back peace to the Northern region now ravaged by ethnic and religious violence driven in large part by Boko Haram.

The two main rivals for the endorsement of the Northern Elder's Political Forum's consensus ticket, General Ibrahim Babangida and former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar met with amongst others the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, including other eminent citizens, such as Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, among others, at the Maizube farm house of General Abubakar in Minna, Niger State, to proffer solutions to the lingering security challenges bedeviling the country.

Others in attendance at the two-day meeting included former CJN, Justice Alfa Belgore; Sheik Ahmed Lemu; Alhaji Ismaila Isa Funtua; Dr Bello Fadile; Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, Mrs Pauline Tallen; Alhaji Aminu Sale; Professor Jubril Aminu and Brigadier-General John Sagaya (retd).

The Chairman of yesterday's meeting was the head of the Northern Elders Political Forum, Also, Mallam Ciroma, said there were certain issues that had become concerns to all the citizens, especially issues of security, economic situation of the country, religious confrontation, as well as the use of government resources anyhow by leaders of government.

However, Ciroma forgot to add that it was the threatening comments for him and us fellows in the Northern Elders Political Forum that had stoked religious sentiments and inspired hate groups such as Boko Haram who may have been inspired by the comments from Alhaji Lawal Kaita who said in October 2010 that "The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy".

Kaita, founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and close ally of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, had at that time warned that the North should not be blamed for the calamity that will befall the country, if Jonathan emerges President.

Now, if Nigerians had thought that Kaita was joking, his own principal, former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, had come out openly on the 14th of December 2010 to say " Let me again send another message to the leadership of our great country, especially the political leadership that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”

In the light of the above, many are beginning to ask the question if Boko Haram is just a creation of some in the North in reaction to power slipping from the zone and an attempt to have leverage to renegotiate the return of power to the region by 2015.

The facts have been presented. Now make your own conclusions.

http://www.naijapundit.com/news/is-boko-haram-a-bargaining-chip-in-the-north-s-desire-for-increased-revenue-from-oil

Charles. E:
Is Boko Haram a Bargaining Chip in the North's Desire For Increased Revenue From Oil / 2015?

Most Nigerians failed to read between the lines when Buba Galadima, National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change and right hand man of the party's presidential candidate in last year's presidential elections, Muhammadu Buhari, told the BBC that Boko Haram was more popular in certain parts of the North than the government gave it credit for.

In that Late December 2011 interview (click here for the interview) Buba Galadima had said "The people are sympathetic to certain principles and ideas," he told the BBC. "If people feel they are being denied anything or an injustice is being meted out to them then there is a likelihood that they will take the law into their own hands and help themselves."

Mr Galadima, who is from near Damaturu, where Boko Haram originally sprang from, raised the case of the former militants from the oil-rich Niger Delta who were given generous financial packages from the government to keep them out of trouble.

"Why didn't the president crush the Niger Deltans? That's a questions a lot of people in this part of the country are asking," he said.

"Instead they are being rewarded for the economic destruction they brought Nigeria. Why can't the same be true for Boko Haram?"

In the last couple of weeks prominent individuals and groups from the North have initiated a coordinated campaign to agitate for an increased share of oil revenue from the Niger Delta. This strategy has been too coordinated to be a coincidence and the first salvo was fired by the governor of the CBN, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who in an interview with the Financial Times of London on the fringes of the World Economic Forum that the 13% derivation being paid to South South states is one of the major causative reasons for the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency.

His exact words at that time were as follows "There is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence."

"When you look at the figures and look at the size of the population in the north, you can see that there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions. Those states simply do not have enough money to meet basic needs while some states have too much money.

"The imbalance is so stark because the state still depends on oil for more than 80 per cent of its revenues"

When a stunned nation was still in shock wondering how a public servant could utter those words, the same Sanusi Lamido Sanusi then 'donated' 100 million Naira of public funds to his home state of Kano as the CBN's contribution after the state suffered an attack from Boko Haram.

Soon after this, the Chairman of the Northern States Governor's Forum, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State came out only to call for more oil money to be sent up North pledging that the current revenue formula was skewed against the North.

His words were “The revenue allocation formula should be looked at. We are hoping that within 2012, there would be discussions and review of the allocation formula.

“But there are other issues that would come. For example, there were oil wells that were over 200 kilometres away of the shore of the country. Those ones before the passage of law by the National Assembly were supposed to be oil wells for the whole country.

“But now, they have been made to be given only to the contiguous states in addition to the 13 per cent derivation. So, if you look at that, you will say that it will not serve everybody well if certain parts of the country are not doing well while some parts are doing exceptionally well. So, THE PRESSURE WILL CONTINUE until we are able to find a solution.”

Many Nigerians are still wondering what Babangida Aliyu meant by "THE PRESSURE"?

When his call was vociferously rejected by governors from the South south, home of Nigeria's oil production, Babangida Aliyu remained adamant and said no one could intimidate the North over its demand for more oil wealth.

After Sanusi and Aliyu had needed their salvo, the nation woke up to find that some elements in the North had set up a body called Concerned Northern Leaders. This group NaijaPundit gathered was set up by hard liners in the North to counter calls for a Sovereign National Conference as well as put pressure on the political infrastructure of the nation to ensure that a Northern emerges as president in 2015.

In the first salvo fired by the CNL, it's convener, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, granted an interview to the Sun Newspapers where he said that the North is ready for Nigeria's break up. He however insisted that the North would lay claim to Yoruba speaking areas of Kwara and Kogi states as well as Abuja (click here for Junaid's interview).

Many pundits had read that interview as an attempt to intimidate progressive elements who were demanding for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference and get the Yoruba proponents of the call for an SNC to count the cost of their agitation before it became too late.. In that interview, Dr. Junaid dropped with bile and scorn on proponents of the SNC.

If Nigerians thought that the first salvo from the CNL was bad, the next salvo fired this past Thursday was a bomb shell. After meeting in Asokoro, Abuja, Dr. Junaid read a communique insisting that the revenue formula must be reviewed because the 13% derivation to the South South was hurting the people of the region. According to the Concerned Northern Leaders, indigenes of oil-producing states have become victims because the revenue accruing to their states “is far beyond their executive capacity to manage".

Dr. Junaid in the said communique then incredibly called for those funds that currently accrue to the Niger Delta to be plowed to other regions most notably the North!

However, Dr. Junaid failed to tell Nigeria's that what Nigeria's founding fathers agreed with the British at independence was that each region should control its resources and that 50% of the resources in each region was kept by the region, 25% shared with other regions wile 25% is paid to the central government.

But a greater shock came the way of Nigerians when the Northern Elders Political Leaders Forum, which came into being in 2010 as an amalgamation headed by Adamu Ciroma to wrest power from president Jonathan in favor of a Northerner resurrected and began holding meetings. The first meeting was held a week ago at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja. A follow up meeting was held between Thursday the 15th and yesterday, Friday the 16th of March.

In their communique released yesterday after a meeting at the Maizube farm residence of former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, the group said they would Bring back peace to the Northern region now ravaged by ethnic and religious violence driven in large part by Boko Haram.

The two main rivals for the endorsement of the Northern Elder's Political Forum's consensus ticket, General Ibrahim Babangida and former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar met with amongst others the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, including other eminent citizens, such as Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, among others, at the Maizube farm house of General Abubakar in Minna, Niger State, to proffer solutions to the lingering security challenges bedeviling the country.

Others in attendance at the two-day meeting included former CJN, Justice Alfa Belgore; Sheik Ahmed Lemu; Alhaji Ismaila Isa Funtua; Dr Bello Fadile; Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, Mrs Pauline Tallen; Alhaji Aminu Sale; Professor Jubril Aminu and Brigadier-General John Sagaya (retd).

The Chairman of yesterday's meeting was the head of the Northern Elders Political Forum, Also, Mallam Ciroma, said there were certain issues that had become concerns to all the citizens, especially issues of security, economic situation of the country, religious confrontation, as well as the use of government resources anyhow by leaders of government.

However, Ciroma forgot to add that it was the threatening comments for him and us fellows in the Northern Elders Political Forum that had stoked religious sentiments and inspired hate groups such as Boko Haram who may have been inspired by the comments from Alhaji Lawal Kaita who said in October 2010 that "The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy".

Kaita, founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and close ally of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, had at that time warned that the North should not be blamed for the calamity that will befall the country, if Jonathan emerges President.

Now, if Nigerians had thought that Kaita was joking, his own principal, former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, had come out openly on the 14th of December 2010 to say " Let me again send another message to the leadership of our great country, especially the political leadership that those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable.”

In the light of the above, many are beginning to ask the question if Boko Haram is just a creation of some in the North in reaction to power slipping from the zone and an attempt to have leverage to renegotiate the return of power to the region by 2015.

The facts have been presented. Now make your own conclusions.

http://www.naijapundit.com/news/is-boko-haram-a-bargaining-chip-in-the-north-s-desire-for-increased-revenue-from-oil

It has become the bargaining chip for increased revenue and Northern presidency. I don't see why people like Sanusi are still walking free considering the utterances credited to his name. GEJ should act on this oppportunist.

^^^
Lazy criminal Northerners,all they do is rush cap-in-hand to Abuja to collect so-called statutory allocations from the FG from oil sales;oil that they do not have.Idiots

After having all these evidences on ground that BH is a northern political tool to destabilize, undermine and make unstable Jonathan's government by their malicious actions. I still wonder why these people who made these threatning utterances prior to the re-election of Jonathan are still out there. Is either Jonathan is afraid to step on toes or reluctant of solving the security challenges in Nigeria. These northerners are out to fulfill their threat of undermining this administration's credibility no matter how many innocent lives are gone.

I don't think so.
If the same trick did not work with MEND, why should it work with BH?

I still do not know what BH's game plan is.
Is it to bring back the military regime?
I am still trying to figure it all out.

There is more than meets the eyes.

NEVER NEGOTIATE WITH CRIMINALS. whether boko haram or niger delta militants. give a monster a cookie, the next thing he will ask for is a glass of milk.

when you reward violence just know you've created an industry of carrying up arms!

Abeg, the south-east should start grooming a candidate (preferably Rochas) we will hand over to in 2019.
The northern oligarchy should prepare for 7 more seasons of fireworks.

BTW, what is pauline tallen doing in that meeting?