Niger Delta group threatens secession over resource control…We don’t subscribe to that, Edwin Clark says

In a 51-page document distributed to delegates at the conference yesterday, the group threatened thus: “On hundred percent resource ownership we stand or self-determination shall be our only option.”The secession entitled document “Niger Delta: The Economic Life of Nigeria…On resource ownership we stand,” which was reacting to Northern position at the conference, claimed that the […]

In a 51-page document distributed to delegates at the conference yesterday, the group threatened thus: “On hundred percent resource ownership we stand or self-determination shall be our only option.”
The secession entitled document “Niger Delta: The Economic Life of Nigeria…On resource ownership we stand,” which was reacting to Northern position at the conference, claimed that the oil producing region has been shortchanged in Nigeria by successive regimes.
The document also accused the North of marginalising the South in the areas of states and local government creation as well as revenue sharing.
They gave conditions for staying in Nigeria which include the right to “a hundred percent ownership and control rights for communities or states,” who would in turn, “pay a percentage through the regions to the federal government.
On Customs and Excise, they said “50 percent should go to the state to which the goods are going or in the case of excise duty, the state in which the goods are produced…only state should collect value added tax on the consumer goods and services within the territory of the states.
“The various regions must be allowed a voluntary will to decide how they want to be governed through their independent constitutions before they move on to negotiate how to federate with the rest of the federation.
“A completely new peoples constitution should be drafted collectively by the ethnic nationalities to replace the current northern military inspired 1999 constitution,” they said.          
But in his reaction, the leader of Niger Delta delegation in the conference Chief Edwin Clark, dismissed the group secession threat, saying the region will remain in Nigeria.
Clark who stood during the plenary to speak on the document said: “This afternoon a document came into my hand. This is the document (waving it). I want to say that the South South members did not subscribe to it. I am the leader.
“This document is vicious, malicious and it is not a South South paper. We are investigating this matter and we will report back to you,” he said.
He added that: “We are Nigerians and we will remain Nigerians whatever we get from this conference.”
The Ijaw leader said: “We have been cheated, we have been downtrodden, oppressed, discriminated against. Everything has been done to the people of Niger Delta and we kept quiet.
“But today God has made it that the president of this country is from the South South or the Niger Delta and we believe that Nigerians voted for us. We didn’t vote for ourselves and we are members of this country,” Clark said.
The conference has been considering reports of its committees and one of the controversial committees is that of devolution of power which tackles resource control, state police, among others.
The plenary has not yet deliberated on that committee which had already generated heated debates among delegates, dividing them into geo-political blocks.