Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Dr. Esekumemu V. Clark
contentious issue in the body politics of the country. Since the
Phillipson Commission (1945) which indeed had recommended the
derivation principle on Nigeria’s fiscal federalism, many other revenue
allocation systems had been authored or put in place (among others,
see Mbanefoh and Egwaikhide 1999; Adesina 1999; Olowononi
1999; Obi 1999). The derivation model was applicable until crude oil
had become the principal source of the country’s foreign exchange
earnings.
When oil became the main source of hard currency
earnings, and was largely found in the region of minority groups, it
became a source of concerns for the main ethnic groups because it
lead to a reconfiguration of wealth, including power towards the
ethnic minorities (see, e.g. Mbanefoh and Egwaikhide 1999).
Certainly, to prevent such a scenario the main ethnic group who
wielded political power, had decided to adopt a new revenue allocation
formula from which they are benefiting a disproportionate share of the
oil revenues at the detriment of the oil-producing ethnic minority
groups. Mbanefoh and Egwaikhide (1999) argued that the oil
produced, for example, has been in the regions of the main ethnic
groups, yet the derivation principle remained the same formula used
since 1945 in the country’s fiscal system.
Moreover, the Aboyade Technical Committee on Revenue
Allocation in 1977 and the submission of the Minority Report of the
Okigbo Revenue Allocation Commission in 1981, respectively,
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