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

Chapter IX: The Politics and Policies of Oil Deregulation in Nigeria:
Implications and Policy Suggestions
"The fuse on the Niger Delta is very short," says fisheries expert
Chris Allegoa, an Ijaw (the largest minority group in the area). "All of
these explosions throughout the Delta are just mini-explosions. There
could be a big bang." And if the Niger Delta explodes "Nigeria,"
Allegoa says, "goes with it." (Adebanwi, 2001).
To understand and appreciate the anger and frustration of the
nine oil producing states it is necessary to go back to the origins and
subsequent negation of fiscal federalism in Nigeria. Before
independence in 1960, and after five separate commissions on
revenue allocation, it had been agreed by Nigeria’s political leaders in
1958 that the sharing of all revenue was to be based on the two
principles of derivation and need. Both the premier of the Northern
Region, the Sadauna, and that of the Western Region, Chief Awolowo,
had insisted that, for the purpose of revenue allocation, the principle
of derivation was to be given primacy. On his own part, the premier of
the Eastern Region, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, had emphasized need. In
other words, each of the three regions had insisted on the principle it
considered favorable to it, with the Northern and Western region
opting for derivation as the main factor for the sharing of federation
account. The major exports then were cocoa (West), groundnut
(North), and palm oil (East). Oil had not then become the main stay of
the economy and its major exports.
The 1946 Richards Constitution had introduced a system of fiscal
federalism by which each administrative unit was expected to be
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