By Edward T. Dibiana
Governors, legislators and other leaders from the Niger Delta region, will be meeting today in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, to deliberate on the contentious issue of allowing Zamfara State to sell gold mined in the state to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, as was recently reported.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State made this disclosure in Asaba, the state capital, while addressing the press in his quarterly media interaction, yesterday.
Okowa wondered why the oil rich region would not be allowed to control its resources just as Zamfara State because of the laws governing oil and other mineral resources that he describes as “discriminatory”.
According to the governor, “We cannot apply laws in such a manner that it becomes discriminatory because you cannot mine solid minerals somewhere in Zamfara and you can’t allow Niger Delta to manage their oil.
“I believe that at some point in time, these discriminatory tendencies will have to be revisited in our nation at some point in time.”
He said that South-South governors, before now, have been talking about the need for restructuring and demand for resource control.
“We are on that because we feel there is the need to restructure not only the country but the management of resources.
“But as of today, there are Acts in the National Assembly that guide the issue of oil production and with the solid mineral. Those are not covered in these Acts, and obviously, this is already a sore point in our nation’s governance system, and we hope to express this very strongly during the meeting taking place in Port Harcourt on Friday.”
Zamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle, recently displayed bars of gold mined from the state, named “Zamfara gold”, which was sold to the CBN.
365daily had earlier reported on this controversial issue of “Zamfara gold” in an article titled, “Those kicking against Zamfara Gold, ignorant of the law”, a submission made by a former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State, Engineer Patrick Ekpotu, in an exclusive interview.
Ekpotu, speaking on the laws the Delta State governor alluded to as discriminatory, argued that people should rather worry about the inability of states to step up their investment fundamentals by performing similar feat and creating revenues for their respective states, as he explained, “the development of oil mineral and solid minerals like gold do not all come under the same governing laws”, and so should not be viewed from the same prism.
According to the former deputy governor, “Most state governments had obtained solid mineral concessions and mining rights from the federal government and set up their state-owned mining concerns to generate revenue and employment. Zamfara State government may have been one of such title holders. And if the state earned its gold as a product of this endeavour, it should have unrestricted rights, like any other miner, to sell its produce to whoever wishes to buy.
“About 34 pieces of legislation govern the development of the oil sector in Nigeria. Leading these laws are our 1999 Constitution (as amended) which followed its predecessors and the Minerals Ordinances of 1945 (that made all mineral the property of the Crown, which was succeeded by the Federal Government upon independence) and the Petroleum Act. These laws vested ownership and control of oil found anywhere in Nigeria in the Federal Government.
“The federal government participates directly in petroleum operations through the National Oil Company, the NNPC. It is the title owner of mineral oil and is also the title holder of all leases through the NNPC.
“Also belonging to it is solid minerals. But the laws regulating and guiding it development is different and anchored on helping to develop a private sector led mining initiative, under small and medium scale, individuals and partnerships industrial schemes. Here, government plays restricted role of an administrator/regulator through the minister in charge. It is this same pattern that solid mineral nations like Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Niger, etc. are being actively explored and mined. In this case, the Federal Government is also the title owner, but the title holders of Leases or Licenses are the private sector operators. This is how the laws have shaped the operation of the two sectors.”
The leaders and people of the Niger Delta region are apparently no longer comfortable with such “discriminatory laws” and are now bent on initiating a move that would likely see a revisiting of the laws, starting with today’s meeting in Port-Harcourt.
Nice talk, more grace strength wisdom in Jesus name amen!
We await the response of the South south governors, as they meet in Port Harcourt today, November 17, over the issue. Thanks again, Jeffrey