By Babs oyetoro
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that the oil and gas found in the Niger Delta region belong to the federal government, and not to the oil-bearing communities but Mike Ozekhome disagreed with Obasanjo.

Ozekhome faulted Obasanjo on his position on the ownership of the oil and gas in the Niger Delta region saying the former President was part and parcel of successive military juntas that smuggled obnoxious law into the constitution.

He disclosed that Obasanjo might not be living in the reality of our time adding that any extant constitutional or statutory provisions that runs contrary to this common-sensecal common law principle are therefore nothing but bad, immoral, expropriating, and explotative laws .

“Help me inform Obasanjo that Nigeria operates a federal system of government, and that federalism is fiscal and plural. One of the major attributes of federalism is that it ensures that regions, sub-national or federating units develop according to their pace and needs, using the God-given resources that are available to such units. They pay tax to the central government.

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“Help me inform President Obasanjo that a law that literally steals the resources of a people, punishing them with destruction of their only available aquatic and agrarian life, even though in the statute books, is a bad, aberrant, and obnoxious law.

“Help me tell Obasanjo that in the USA, since oil was discovered in 1859, (a country whose Presidentialism and federalism we ape after), oil and gas are not owned by the American Federal government, but by the surface owners, while oil and gas offshore are owned either by states or federal Government”.