Delta State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa has said no law of the country permits Zamfara State Government to control and manage gold deposits in the
Delta State governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa has said no law of the country permits Zamfara State Government to control and manage gold deposits in the state, noting the governors of South-South region will soon take up the matter with the Federal Government.
Okowa, who spoke at his 2020 quarterly media interaction in Asaba, the state capital, maintained that what Zamfara state government was doing was with the mined gold was clearly an illegality, warning that if the matter was not properly addressed, South -South governors would have no option than to assume control of oil and gas in their states.
The governor, who asserted that South-South governors believe in restructuring and resource control, hinted that governors of the oil- rich region, ministers, lawmakers and other stakeholders would meet on Friday, in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state, to deliberate and take position on the matter and other issues. He also applauded the efforts of the South-South Governors who he said though could do better, were already doing very well amidst the challenges they face in the development of their respective states.
According to him, “South-South governors before now have been talking about the need for restructuring and need for resource control, obviously we are on that because we feel there is the need to restructure not only the country, but the management of resources. But as at today, there are acts in the National Assembly that guide the issue of oil production and with the solid minerals, those are not covered in these acts and obviously, this is already a sore point in our nation’s governance system and we hope to express this very strongly during the meeting taking place in PortHarcourt on Friday.
“We cannot apply laws in our nation to the point that it becomes discriminatory because if people are allowed to process for their solid minerals, they should also be allowed to do same for their oil. So we are going to be very hard and try to make our voice as strong as possible during the meeting. I believe that at some point in time, these discriminatory tendencies will have to be revisited in our nation at some point in time.”
