“The South Feels The Rest of The Country Wants To Milk It And Tell Them Goodbye” – Ex-Governor Obong Victor Attah

Obong Victor Attah, the former governor of Akwa Ibom has said that Niger Delta militancy was fuelled by the fact that oil blocs were owned by people not from the region.

Vanguard Newspaper reports that the former governor said the south south feels it is carrying the whole nation and this issue must be addressed.

“The South South has the feeling that the rest of the country wants to milk it, pollute it or completely milk it dry and then tell them goodbye. There is that fear and it is not being addressed because the question is why are you preserving all your resources and exploiting only this one?

“There is this concept of diversification. When you talk about diversification, people just think it has to do with going into agriculture, apart from oil. It is not sufficient. ‘’Diversification should come in more areas than just agriculture. If we had diversified our source of power, today we would not feel it so much, at least certainly not in the effect of these bombings (of oil and gas installations).

‘’Today, we are dependent almost exclusively and entirely on the gas turbines and then oil, but if we had had hydro, coal and solar, those boys would see that they are hurting themselves because, we could say, ok, you have cut off the source of power in your area, so you do not have power but the other parts of the country would still have power. ”

‘’They would see that they are not hurting anybody other than themselves. And they would see that in fact, it is silly, what they are doing. So, diversification is beyond going into agriculture.

‘’You will diversify in several other areas and one of the areas you must look at urgently and you must begin to give confidence to other people who have these resources is in the solid minerals.

‘’Go and look at the ownership of Itakpe Iron Ore. It is a mineral resource but even the community is part of the ownership arrangement but tell me whether anybody was ever consulted before oil blocs were given out in the South-South. You know what I mean?

‘’That is why recently I wrote an article and said this Petroleum Industry Bill, let us go softly with it. ‘’Let us be sure that everything is even-handed because if you now come by this bill and treat oil mineral differently from other minerals and give the people on whose lands other minerals are found greater advantages than you have given to people on whose lands oil is found, there would still be dissatisfaction.

‘’So, why can’t we come out with “Mineral Bill”? The 10 percent that was supposed to be given, they said no, that because this one is governance bill. Is that happening in other areas of mineral exploitation? It is a question we have to answer.” Attah advised President Muhammadu Buhari to look into the confab report as it contained suggestions to move the country forward.

“You would realize one thing; that the people who today are steering the party called APC, were in opposition at the time to the government in place. They did not like the idea, because they had this notion that whatever the government does, the opposition must oppose.

‘’So, they opposed the conference and I think they are just holding on to that for whatever reason. There comes a time when you have to acknowledge that, well, you did it because you had to do it or you did it because you were wrong, then you change that position.

‘’Somebody was writing, a major feature writer, in one of the newspapers and he was trying to support the president’s position with regards to that conference report.

‘’He wanted to say that the president has good reasons not to want to consider that report because after all, and this was what he said, President Jonathan did not even want to have it. ‘

’He waited until he was under pressure and because he saw that the people would like it, so he called for the conference. Now, for me, that is an argument for somebody to look at that conference report because if it is something that the people would like, why won’t you do something that the people would like?

‘’I’ll add something else. I read where the current Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Babachir David Lawal) said he is so busy with governance and that it would take him about seven days to go through the report; where is the time to read the report? ‘’How can you be busy governing without being interested in knowing how the people want to be governed? To me, it is a very wrong argument.

‘’There are certain things in that report -I am not saying every decision taken was correct or right- that are imperative because they could bring the succour, they could bring the balm or whatever you need to create the harmony that we want in Nigeria today. You see, when people begin to say that they (government) did not like it in the first instance and so they must not honour it, if you find out that it is something that the people want, then you have to do it. ‘’Let’s not forget that the campaign mantra of this government was change. I was in the PDP then.

‘’When people asked me whether I saw my party winning the elections, I always told them that my party would not win and it was just for one reason, that what I hear from everybody is that we cannot continue this way, so change must come.

‘’Suddenly, if you remember the campaigns, PDP themselves started saying when we come back we would change certain things and I said, oh, you are now shouting change like the opposition is shouting change?

‘’So change must come, whether they would allow PDP to come back and effect those changes, fine but chances are that they are going to bring the people who conceived of the change to come in and effect the change. What that suggests to me is that nobody can successfully stand against an idea whose time has come.

‘’The time for change had come and nobody could stop it. Today, the need for, let me borrow your word, restructuring the fiscal arrangement of Nigeria has come and nobody can stand against it and I mean it. It is not a threat, it is just one of those things you feel, because you see and you know that this is the case.

‘’Fiscal federalism must come and the kernel for the establishment and operation of proper fiscal arrangement within the country is in that report and that report cannot and must therefore not be ignored,” he said.