ABSTRACT

In 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo inaugurated the National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) to brainstorm on the vexed national question and make recommendations for proposed constitutional review. The politics of power sharing and resource allocation dominated and eventually disrupted the confab after delegates from the South-South staged a walk-out over the refusal of the more numerous northern delegates to accept their proposal for the increment of revenue assigned to derivation from 13 per cent to 25 per cent. As critical stakeholders sought ways of breaking the deadlock, Professor Kimse Okoko, a delegate of the oil-rich Bayelsa State and President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) was quoted as saying that:

Nigerian patriots would point to the victory over secessionist Biafra in 1970, internal migration, market integration and the national football team as more important unifying factors. However, even if oil were not the reason of the Nigerian state, it is the major attraction in politics. This is evident in the response of a gubernatorial aspirant when asked: ‘why do you want to be a governor of your state …?’