• Friday, March 29, 2024
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13 percent oil derivation should not be paid to governor’s again – Bamuza

Guyana’s $1.4bn oil savings avoid Nigeria’s folly

As controversy continues to trail the 13 percent oil derivation to the Niger Delta governors, some concerned citizens of the regions have called on the Presidency to stop paying the derivation to the governors.

Considering the level of underdevelopment across Niger Delta, the advocates are suggesting that the money should be paid directly to the various communities that produce the oil.

According to Veronica Bamuza-Mutu, an activist and a former Commissioner of Information in the old Bendel State, the governors have not used the money from 13 percent oil derivation for the right purpose since the commencement of its payment years ago.

Bamuza-Mutu, who spoke during an interview with journalists shortly after the Ijaw Republican Assembly Patriotic Front 2022 Heroes of Ijaw Nation Award in Port Harcourt, decried the lack of accountability of the money by the governors.

Read also: Police to recruit ex-militants in Niger Delta region

She explained that the call for the 13 percent oil derivation to be paid to oil producing communities and not the governors of the Niger Delta States became necessary due to the underdevelopment in the region, noting that there is lack of transparency and accountability on how the money is being utilised.

Bamuza maintained that it was wrong from the beginning to pay the money to the governor’s because that was not the concept when it was planned that oil derivation should be paid to oil producing communities and not governors saying that the abnormalities need to be corrected immediately.

She also insisted the oil producing communities should be given priority and also carried along on how the money should be used, what projects and where to site them because they are the people that feel the impact of the degradation caused by oil drilling in their various communities and not the governors.

Bamuza-Mutu is a legal practitioner and a member of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) and she was a member of the 1995 Abacha Constitution Review Committee.