So i guess the best way to earn an income is to strat a militant group. what happens to the remaining citizens of Nigeria who cannot eat, cannot send their children to school, cannot save their child’s life because they have no money?

they want to promote unity in Nigeria, and they create a tactic favorable to only niger delta pple.

the truth is that noone will complain if the govt fixed roads, created good schools, good health facilities, job opportunities. This stupid govt has no brain. lets dash pple money without them doing any work and we’ll see how much that helps the nation as a whole.

Nigerian Govt = Fools

“All citizens of oil-bearing communities would be entitled to cash benefits, delivered through a trust-style mechanism, which they could use individually or pool for social projects.” I think this is ridiculous. How exactly does the Nigerian government plan to accurately categorize the current (and future) residents of the area as “citizens” or “non-citizens”? What happens if say your mother is a “citizen” and your father is not? Or what if you have grown up in that area all your life and contributed to its development but you are not a so-called “citizen”? Should such a person be included or excluded in this idiotic disbursement?

This is the typical kind of mindless, short-term, idiotic, wasteful, and, in the long-term, totally ineffective solution I expect from Nigeria’s government. If we had well-functioning state and local governments in the Niger Delta region, such an allocation of funds should go directly to those governments. Those governments would then disburse the funds as appropriate in the area to all RESIDENTS of the area, regardless of whether they are “CITIZENS” or not. Clearly, Nigeria is full of incompetent and dysfunctional governments at all levels (with a few exceptions, of course), so such an allocation given to the state and local governments would very likely end up further enriching a few cronies.

My suggestion: Clean up the current Niger Delta Affairs Ministry (or whatever it is called). Root out corruption in this ministry and install efficient and effective managers and systems. Allocate the funds directly to this ministry and have this ministry be responsible for disbursing the funds to relevant developmental projects in the Niger Delta region.

Ideally, these funds should have gone to the state and local governments. However, these governments have not yet evolved to the point to which they are able to handle such responsibilities effectively. If and when these governments prove themselves to be indeed effective, then the responsibility of funds disbursement can now reside with the state and local governments. For now, such responsibility should reside with the Niger Delta Affairs ministry because it is much more easier to oversee the affairs of one ministry versus a number of state and local governments. Also, the funds should be made available to all residents of the Niger Delta region regardless of whether or not such residents have Niger Delta ethnic backgrounds.