The Lingering Niger Delta Question.

(From This Day (Nigeria) - AAGM)

Byline: Slyvester Akhidime

For the people of the Niger Delta, the recent clamour by some groups against even the promise of some meager concessions implicit in the onshore/offshore oil bill is an instructive development in many important respects. In the first place, I think it is fairly easier now to identify the true friends of the south-south geo-political zone. This is crucial, especially considering that this period is most auspicious in the political calendar of the country.

Also, the fierce attitude of those who consider the on-shore /offshore oil bill a threat to their sectional economic interest, their unyielding posture and threats of hell and brimstone should the National Assembly go ahead and pass the bill as planned, all point to one conclusion: there is yet no sympathy at all in some quarters for the marginalized and famished baker of the nation's bread.

Above all, the debates bring to mind the dangers to the over-all health of the nation, which must follow our refusal to address the fundamental and related issues involved in the so-called national question. At the risk of sounding platitudinous, they are: given a federal arrangement, what quota of the natural resources of each of the …