Dickson: Bayelsa doesn’t get 13% derivation because NNPC is more powerful than FG

Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa, says the most powerful entity in the country is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and not the federal government.

Speaking when he featured in an interview with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Dickson said Bayelsa and other oil-producing states get less than the supposed 13 percent oil derivation owing to the supposed might of the NNPC.

The governor said the states do not get the said 13 percent but paltry sums less than six percent, because NNPC takes what it wants and leaves the rest for the federal government.

According to him, the NNPC is the strongest body in Nigeria, even stronger than the federal government.

“It is a fallacy. In the 13 percent so-called derivation by the constitution, imposed constitution, first of all, what oil-producing states get including Bayelsa is very far from 13%,” Dickson said.

“The most powerful entity in Nigeria is not the federal government. Federal government may deceive itself that it is the most powerful, but of recent, there has been a gradual realisation of that fallacy. The most powerful entity in Nigeria is the NNPC.

“The NNPC takes whatever it wants to take and gives whatever in-house accounts and then brings out whatever paltry sum every month to the table as constituting 13 per cent.

“It is from there they will take away subsidy. Yet Bayelsa and the oil-producing states bear most of the subsidy burden and what the Nigerian public is deceived about 13% is actually less than about 5 percent or 6 percent of what should really be coming to us.”

Asked his stance on the call to restructure Nigeria, Dickson said the discourse should be how, not if the country should be restricted.

He said he does not like commenting on the discourse because some people feel it does not make sense.

“These days, I don’t like talking about restructuring because there is a feeling by some people that the entire notion of restructuring doesn’t make sense,” he said.

“If we are serious about a stable, prosperous Nigeria, then I thought that everybody should be talking of not whether we should restructure but how do we but the argument from some people in the federal government is as if there is nothing to restructure in Nigeria.”