Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has insisted that the oil found in the Niger Delta constitutionally belongs to Nigeria and not the region alone.
This follows the allegations raised by Niger Delta elder, Chief Edwin Clark who accused the former president of showing a display of hatred against people of the Niger Delta region.
He also accused Obasanjo of showing no discontent about the struggle for resource control by the people of the Niger Delta when he visited his house.
However, in a six-page letter directed to the elder statesman, Obasanjo alleged that Clark’s allegations were wrong.
According to him, “All those who purchase crude oil from Nigeria enter into a contractual relationship with Nigeria, not with the Niger Delta. The territory of Nigeria is indivisible inclusive of the resources found therein.
“No territory in Nigeria including the minerals found therein belongs to the area of location and this remains so until the federation is dissolved.
“This is the position of the Nigerian Constitution and international law. If there is a threat of violence to any part of Nigeria today including the Niger Delta it is the Nigerian military backed by any other machinery that can be procured or established at the Federal level that will respond to any such threat.
“In principle and practice, the position I have taken on the location of mineral resources in any part of Nigeria is the legal and constitutional position.”
Meanwhile, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome, has disagreed with ex-President Obasanjo on his stand about the oil in the Niger Delta.
Reacting in a statement, Ozekhome said the Niger Delta region has been repressed, suppressed, marginalized and neglected.
According to him, “Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has theorized that the oil and gas found in the Niger Delta region belong to the federal government, and not to the oil-bearing communities.
“Legally speaking, Obasanjo can be said to be correct, because he was part and parcel of successive military juntas that cleverly and systematically inserted expropriatory and inhuman laws concerning ownership of oil and gas into our statute books. But, does that make such laws right or justifiable? No. I think not.”
“Ex-president Obasanjo should be told in very clear terms that there is such an overriding principle of law which goes with the maxim of ‘quic quid plantatatur solo solo cedit’.
“This literally means that whoever owns the land owns everything on top of it. Any extant constitutional or statutory provisions ( such as those apparently referred to by Obasanjo) that run contrary to this commonsensical common law principle are therefore nothing but bad, immoral, exproriatory and exploitative laws.
“Help me inform Obasanjo that Nigeria operates a federal system of government and that federalism is fiscal and plural. One of the major attributes of federalism is that it ensures that regions, sub-national or federating units develop according to their pace and needs, using the God-given resources that are available to such units. They pay tax to the central government.”
