Bill to scrap 13% derivation will breed anarchy -Alaowei Cleric

By Mary Temewei

Niger Delta group, the Centre for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade (CHURAC) has said that the
bill purportedly appropriated to scrap 13% derivation will breed anarchy in the country.

This was made available to Congress correspondent in a press statement signed by its Board of Trustees, chairman, Cleric E. Alaowei, Esq on Saturday.

The rights lawyer said the Bill allegedly sponsored by a number of Northern lawmakers in the National Assembly to alter section 162 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), is an assault on the pauperized oil bearing communities.

“It’s appalling that at this point of our national oddities, some persons want to stir the turbulent water of insurrection?” he queries.

The statement reads partly: “Deleting the 13% derivation from the Constitution appears like declaring the environmentally degraded and despoiled oil producing communities as slaves who deserved nothing to benefit in Nigeria, including resources found in their lands. It simply means that the oil bearing communities should suffer environmental destruction without remediation.”

He went further:” The last time we checked, chapter two of the Constitution declared Nigeria as a Country of social justice with equal partners where no ethnic groups should be discriminated in any manner. Will the oil host communities or better still the Niger Delta region, be at peace with the Federal Government if this economic apathy is perfected by their oppressors?

“Nigeria is already plagued with too many problems. We can’t afford to have another one. The Country will not survive the conflagration. The sponsors of that draconian Bill should rather seek to increase the derivation to 50% as was the case in the 60s” he maintained.

The BoT chairman, called on the South South lawmakers to sponsor a similar bill at the National Assembly to allow the oil producing States to have 100% control of the natural resources while they pay royalties to the central government, adding that such is the crux of federalism.