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Niger gov needs help

The North seems to have a strategy: to take and take again from the horse that is called Nigeria until it cannot take a step. Through its high number of states, local governments and federal legislative seats, the North robs Nigeria of steam while pontificating on the Nigerian dream. Lagos, easily the population of multiple northern states, remains Lagos while Kano with a comparable population bred states, each of them with multiple local government areas. Lagos, kept back by an ethnically unbalanced and criminally oppressive military, yielded no other states. This week, Niger State governor, Umaru Bago, gave ammunition to those who see no sense in this union called Nigeria. Receiving the federal commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, Tijani Aliyu, in Minna, the state capital, he threatened to shut down Kainji Dam and other power infrastructure supplied to the Niger Delta region if the Federal Government did not extend the payment of 13 per cent derivation fund enjoyed by oil-producing states to Niger State.

Hear him: “We need 13 per cent derivation for water supplied to the Delta. Our people are ravaged and displaced year in, year out because of the flow of water. The Federal Government will pay Niger State N1 trillion in the next three months for hydrocarbon exchange, they must. We have provided this country with hydropower for a long time; nobody is compensating us for it. We have woken up. The only way we can ensure that the Federal Government pays heed to us is to shut down the hydro dams unless we are paid.”

Well, good luck to Bago, his lawsuit and his shut dam, which will only bury him and his state in a flood. Since it appears he is living in antiquity, may I tell him that his state supplies only a minute fraction of Nigeria’s electricity needs nowadays: the bulk of power supply comes from gas-powered plants in the same (Niger) Delta that he scoffs at. What does Bago think is the business of Ibom power plant, Azura power station, Transcorp Ughelli, Kwale power plant, etc? Has he been to Ihovbo? Does Mr Bago seriously think that the “Delta” needs Kainji Dam to fry plantain? The biggest thermal power plant in Nigeria is Egbin, located in Lagos. People who aspire to be governors should read; they shouldn’t just parade certificates and a full beard. In case Mr Bago thinks we are still in the days of the noxious “national grid” anchored on national greed, he is sadly mistaken: the 2023 electricity bill that President Bola Tinubu signed into law shortly after coming to Aso Rock empowers states and private concerns to generate, transmit and distribute electricity. It is last year’s dear that Mr Bago is still eating in his soup.

By the way, maybe Niger State, parading military leaders that looted the Niger Delta dry, giving the people oil to drink and disease to eat in the name of fish, has actually “done enough for Nigeria”. But when is Lagos, which feeds many northern states, getting 13 per cent derivation from VAT? When will Lagos begin collecting duties from the ports, border and airports? If we are shutting down our resources, maybe Prince Dapo Abiodun should shut down Idiroko border. And before we begin receiving payment for the supply of water, let us ask countries like Mali what they think, because the water in which Bago exults passes through them. Besides, wasn’t the dam we are talking about built with Niger Delta money in the first place, or is my memory missing something? And would erosion not have been Niger’s lot if the dam had not been built? Sometimes, coming down from a high horse is the way to peace of mind. By the way, I am not sure that Chief Edwin Clerk, who recently asked that Imo, Abia and Ondo states be expunged from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), would be open to the idea of admitting Niger State into the club.

Does Bago with his baggage of war know how much of Niger Delta oil money has gone into sustaining Niger State for decades? Even in VAT, the South is asked to be its brother keeper, except that Zamfara’s gold seems to belong exclusively to it. Bago is not asking for 13 percent electricity derivation; it’s Niger Delta oil that catches his fancy. If he’ cuts off his electricity and the Niger Delta cuts off its oil, he won’t last a week in office. Many will be hoping that his riot act leads to regionalism.

Mr Bago’s Niger State is “not going to be marginalised again,” since “our waters, our lands, our borders are strengths for us and not weaknesses.” Mr Bago demands “compensation for our people,” but he is wasting the state’s scarce resources on parasitic political appointments. Only recently, he appointed 131 women as special assistants and coordinators, building a bombastic bureaucracy. The appointments, he enthused in his demagoguery, “were based on merit, proven credentials, personal integrity, and outstanding records of performance in their previous assignments.” I am not sure that Lagos State, which can afford to hire Niger State as a night-guard, has such a massive number of governor’s aides. What a damnable cast of crooks we have as governors!

Niger State has not been neglected by the Federal Government. There’s an agency called HYPPADEC. By the way, Niger’s landmass easily trumps Netherlands and Belgium’s combined, and can be Nigeria’s powerhouse in rice and ethanol production, but huger ravages the land as Fulani herdsmen slaughter farmers on their farms, making farming a death sentence. Receiving federal allocations that come whether you work hard or not, and like Sibongile Mani, the South African lady who was mistakenly credited with 850,000 pounds instead of an N85 student grant and who immediately embarked on a spending binge, Mr Bago has his gaze firmly fixed on the manna from Abuja.

Re: Let all Nigerian govts use NORD, IVM vehicles

I read your column on the Tribune of 4/11 on locally made vehicles. Well, the good news is that IVM have exported some of their vehicles to Sierra Loene and two other African countries. Our leaders can continue to fool themselves as much as they want, but they will not stop the match of progress; they may only slow it down. Cheers.

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