RESOURCE CONTROL AND THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION

Mineral oil is said to constitute about 70% of the total national revenue in Nigeria with a Significant percentage coming from the Niger Delta Area. Prior to the discovery of mineral oil in commercial quantity, Nigeria was earning its national revenue from agricultural produce like cocoa, palm oil, groundnuts, rubber, cotton, hides and skin etc. The burning issue of the moment is the clamour from the people of the Niger Delta for the absolute ownership and contro! of the mineral oil and gas both from the onshore and offshore oil fields. Put in other.words, the elite of the Niger Delta are of the view that the mineral oil and gas derived or sourced from that area is the property belonging to the people of that area and that being in Nigeria, they are prepared to pay some royalty, or tax, or some certain percentage of the revenue generated therefrom to the Federal Government of Nigeria, who will in turn share it between itself (the federal government) and other non oil producing areas or states. This is unlike the present Situation that is, all mineral resources including oil and gas belongs to the Federal Government of Nigeria who exploits and market it, using predetermined sharing formula for disbursement based on the principle of derivation. It is the dissatisfaction of the existing principle of derivation by the people of Niger Delta area that gave birth to the term Resource Control. Now, in this article attention will be focused on the emergence of the concept of resource control in Nigeria and what is obtainable in the Nigerian Constitution.