Is’haq Modibo Kawu, Northern irredentists and the appropriation of Nigeria

Special Report
In this concluding part of the discourse, Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, argues that the basis for independent Nigeria is for the country to return to the pre-independence pact by which Regions (States) retained 50 per cent of their natural resources and contributed 20 to the Federal Government
ALL will be quiet on the Federal front and the desperate do or die battle to have the Presidency will abate.
Finally, there is no “Niger Delta political elite currently running Nigeria”, as Is’haq wrongly presumes. The President, is from the Ijaw Nation and he has appointed Advisers and Agents who assist him to run the executive arm of the government. There is no Niger Delta incorporated in this Government.
The vast majority of Niger Deltans are as distant from it as the disenchanted Arewa group. It is a Jonathan Presidency, not a Niger Delta or South South Presidency. For most of us outside the Ijaw geo-ethnic zone in the Niger Delta, this presidency is no different from the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua presidencies.
Our demands are yet to be met by any Presidency. These are fiscal federalism including resource control, strong Regions, a loose federation in which the states will control most matters of human interest and relevance whilst the Federal Government concentrates on matters of common interest amongst the States that can only be handled effectively at a pan Nigerian level, e.g., defence, foreign affairs, immigration, currency, customs, banking, aviation, citizenship.
Atrophied states
Local Governments and Federation Account must never be featured in Federal Constitution. Local Governments belong to States 100 per cent and States can create as many local governments as they wish, but they must fund them exclusively.
Federation Accounts are an excuse for dispossessing States of their resources, in favour of an unproductive federal government which on becoming bloated with these resources, dominates and controls the atrophied States into submission.
The bloated, corrupt and inefficient Federal Government becomes the centre of a titanic and destructive struggle for control. States’ indolence and parasitic tendencies follow, resulting in an unproductive and underdeveloped country.  This destructive template must be reversed.
That is the essence of the Niger Delta case.  Any candidate from any part of Nigeria, whose programme contains these elements, will enjoy a massive following from the Niger Delta.
For us, there must be an end to one tier of the Federation, appropriating our patrimony, and then handing over a pittance to us with the demand that we must be grateful.
Our case is that we must revert to the pre-independence constitutional conference pact by which Regions (States) retained 50 per cent of their natural resources and contributed 20 per cent to the Federal Government and 30 per cent too a distributable fund of which the economically weak Regions, were the main beneficiaries.
That way every state developed itself first, with productive activities, before receiving a little help from richer States as complementary gestures.
There was no parasitic federalism, in which idleness and monthly trips to Abuja to collect dole or state welfare package became the sole source of State existence. States that cannot survive without the monthly trip to Abuja have no right to exist as separate States.
They should merge with more viable States. Even better still we need to re-structure ourselves into Regions or zones, using the present six zones as the basis, with minor changes, like Yoruba parts of Kwara and Kogi, joining the Western (Yoruba) Region. We must now revert to our pre-independence pact which was embodied in the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions. That is the basis of independent Nigeria.