Wording dispute stalls oil-revenue bill

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has declined to sign into law an oil bill aimed at pacifying the oil-bearing Niger Delta region. Senior Nigerian officials said on Friday that Obasanjo and the legislature disagreed over the wording of the proposed law. The bill proposed by Obasanjo was intended to end a dispute between the federal government and states in the Niger Delta oil region following a Supreme Court ruling in April that awarded control of offshore oil revenue to the central government. However, prior to passing the bill in October, the legislature extended the offshore area to be considered part of a state from 24 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles by changing the phrase "contiguous zone" to "continental shelf". "The President finds this unacceptable and has asked the legislature for an amendment," a senior presidential aide told IRIN. Under the 1999 constitution, at least 13 percent of total oil revenue was to have gone to states in the impoverished oil region. On taking office in 1999, Obasanjo limited the allocation to 7.5 percent on the grounds that offshore oil belonged to the federal government. Following objections by the governments of the affected states, the federal government last year filed a complaint at the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favour. The ruling was viewed adversely by state governments in the oil region, most of whose finances were hurt. The worst hit were states like Akwa Ibom and Ondo, which lost most of their share of oil revenue since the bulk of the production in their area was offshore. A subsequent upsurge of protests in the region, apparently in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling, disrupted the operations of oil transnationals. With Obasanjo seeking re-election next year, his electoral fortunes in the Niger Delta, where he scored a massive victory in 1999, were threatened as resentment against his government grew. The new bill was supposed to provide a clever political solution, but the legislators took the provisions further. This has created yet another sticking point between a president and a legislature which have quarrelled for most of the past three and half years. If, 30 days after a bill is passed by parliament, the president has not given his assent, both houses of the legislature can override his veto with a two-thirds majority. The legislature has taken this route twice before and may take it again in this dispute. However, this time around, Obasanjo has received the backing of influential leaders from the mainly Muslim north of the country, including a group in Kano, the biggest city in the north. The group, known as the Kano Elders’ Forum and led by Ado Bayero, the Emir of Kano, urged the legislators in a communique on Thursday to reconsider their position, saying the bill they passed went against the “spirit and letter” of the constitution. "The bill will seem to extend the territorial boundary of some states without going through the proper constitutional procedure for making such amendments and give them additional rights without corresponding responsibilities," the group said. According to the forum, implementing the bill would reduce resources coming to the non-oil states, with devastating consequences on their economies, and thereby undermine national security.