Despite the preachments of successive northern politicians, including President Muhammadu Buhari about the imperative of a united Nigeria for national development, it is an insulting and shameful paradox, and a gratuitous assault on the collective intelligence and sensibilities of Nigerians, if the plan by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to purchase gold worth N5 billion from Zamfara state government is not shelved in the interest of peace. Not only does it violate extant provisions of the constitution; it also flies in the face of the 2007 Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act, that clearly states in Section 1(1) and (2) that: “all mineral resources in, under or upon any land in Nigeria, its contiguous continental shelf and all rivers, streams, and watercourses throughout Nigeria, any area covered by its territorial waters or constituency and the exclusive economic zone is and shall be vested in the government of the federation for and on behalf of the people of Nigeria.” A situation where proceeds of oil from the Niger Delta are shared by all federating units, while gold from Zamfara is the exclusive preserve of the state government amounts to hypocrisy and double standards. This illegality portends grave danger to the unity and territorial integrity of Nigeria as a corporate entity and must not be allowed to stand.
Tension has been mounting in the Niger Delta region after Zamfara governor, Bello Matawalle met President Buhari in Abuja, after which he claimed the president advised him to liaise with South African and Russian mining companies for full scale mining of gold and other precious stones in the state. Matawalle gave Buhari a present of gold bars. He also disclosed that Zamfara state intends to organize artisanal miners into cooperative groups; to take advantage of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI) by mining gold which will then be sold directly to CBN. To which end, Zamfara state has already established a gold reserve with 31 kg of processed pure gold. Already, gold refinery equipment has been located in Baka Lori dam of Zamfara State, with the intent to transform the state into a global center of gold business.
But these developments have become the source of major controversy and anger especially in the oil-producing Niger Delta region and there have been calls for erstwhile Niger Delta militants to disrupt oil production in the nine Niger Delta states until the vexing issue of resource control and revenue allocation is resolved. It is just as well that Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central), took to the Senate floor to fire the first salvo against Governor Matawalle and the CBN N5 billion gold bullion deal. “Mr. President, our people are beginning to wonder who owns this gold that is being sold to the CBN. They don’t sell oil in any of the Niger Delta States. I am wondering why a governor of a state should be selling gold bars from Zamfara to the CBN. There are two problems with that. We believe that whatever revenue that ought to come from that transaction belongs to the entire country and not to the state government.”
The public outrage over the Zamfara State and CBN gold deal forced the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, to publicly declare that all mineral resources in the country are vested in the federal government, but that Zamfara State was exploiting the privilege to purchase the gold from their people and then resell to the CBN based on the PAGMI initiative. This use of PAGMI as a subterfuge wherein artisanal Zamfara miners can mine and sell gold and earn revenue for Zamfara State, but a governor in the Niger Delta region cannot drill crude oil and sell it to generate revenue for his state, is hypocrisy that stinks to the high Heavens. Minister Adegbite might be saying one thing but the body language of President Buhari betrays the fact that the federal government has tacitly empowered artisanal miners in Zamfara to go into mining gold and sell directly to PAGMI, for onward sale to the CBN for use as part of Nigeria’s foreign reserve.
That the twin issue of resource control and revenue allocation is one of the most contentious issues in Nigeria today is not debatable. That the debate over the issue has been so boisterous, in the wake of the Zamfara gold controversy therefore, is no surprise. Reason must, however, prevail to ensure that justice and equity, in the true spirit of federalism, reign in whatever the final resolution is. If Zamfara is allowed to keep its gold; then other states in the federation should be allowed control over whatever mineral resources obtains in their various states. The present formula for resource allocation is whimsical and an affront to the principle of federalism.
The problem is accentuated by an unacceptable sharing formula for revenues derived from natural resources which jettisoned the formula adopted by the 1960 Constitution and replaced it with one that can hardly ensure fair and equitable distribution of these resources among the people. This is yet another area of controversy, so topical to the point of provoking acerbic and combustive agitation and palpable tension particularly in the oil producing areas of Nigeria.
For over five decades, the national economy has relied almost solely on resource extraction from the Niger Delta. The legal control of the country’s natural resources by the Federal Government had been at the core of clamor for restructuring the country in line with the principle of federalism. It should be recalled that during the last national conference, when the issue of resource control came up, northern delegates voted against it. Officially, the federal government has banned industrial-scale mining which provides cannon fodder for Zamfara state to claim the miners are artisans covered by PAGMI. Nigeria’s reluctance to address the vexing issue of resource control advocated by oil-producing states in the Niger Delta; while allowing Zamfara State to engage in illegal gold mining, is anathema to national unity and risks fueling agitations in the Niger Delta.
It was former President Goodluck Jonathan who, perhaps inadvertently, gave vent to the obnoxious absurdity that governors who challenge him or the Federal Government do so at their own peril as their states will suffer underdevelopment while those who are subservient to him and kowtow to the Federal Government would have a lot to take home. In essence, subservience of a state governor to the President has been elevated to statesmanship and principle of economic development. This is outside the beautiful contemplation of the federal system of government which by nature desires that every constituent unit must be sufficiently independent of the center in a way that the unity of the whole is not compromised. This is why Nigerians have never ceased to decry the warped arrangement currently in place, which has consigned state governors to perpetual beggars
