Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, is seeking a court order to end all forms of discrimination against South East zone of Nigeria and one trillion naira compensation as damages for what it has suffered over the years

|  By Olu Ojewale  |  May 1, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT  |

OLISA Agbakoba, SAN, has filed a fundamental rights class action against the Federal Republic of Nigeria for himself and on behalf of the South East Zone on grounds of discriminatioon citing Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution.

In the suit, the lawyer is also demanding the sum of N1,000,000,000,000 (One Trillion Naira) from the federal government to be shared among the five states of the South-East geopolitical zone, as damages for what they have suffered as a result of the discriminatory acts against the zone.

The action was by originating summons supported by an affidavit of 99 paragraphs and a statement. According to the summons, the grounds of Agbakoba’s application include total neglect of his geopolitical zone by the federal government in terms of infrastructure and general federal presence thereby making him, the applicant feel not part of the federation of Nigeria.

Two, Agbakoba claimed in the application that the abandonment of the Niger Bridge to collapse and failure to build the ‘Second Niger Bridge’ was making him feel isolated from other parts of Nigeria and also causing him apprehension about disaster on crossing the existing bridge.

Three, he argued that the abandonment of federal roads, which he described as “death traps and robbery baits” occasionally constrained him to gruelling road journeys within the geopolitical Zone.

Specifically, he said failure to develop strategic new roads especially the Anam-Nzam Federal Road linking the South-East with the North-Central at Idah in Kogi State does not give him easy access to the northern part of Nigeria.

Similarly, he said failure of the federal government to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Anambra Basin, has so far stalled his legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for development of the South-East zone.

The lawyer said the abandonment of the Enugu Colliery similarly was depriving him the legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for the development of the South-East Zone, where he comes from.

Besides,  he argued that the failure to develop trade-friendly ports and customs policies and establish ‘ease-of-business’ platforms to assist the South East zone have been depriving his “trading brothers and sisters to do better and operate on a higher and modern scale in trading, which makes the applicant to spend money to support relatives.”

Similarly, Agbakoba said the failure to have an operational international cargo airport at Owerri, Imo State, to aid trading, has been causing him to spend huge sums of money to support trading relatives to haul airborne goods by road from Lagos, with the attendant risks.

The senior advocate of Nigeria further pointed out that failure to dredge the lower Niger and establish a port at Onitsha to aid trading have been a great discomfort to him and caused him “to spend huge sums of money to support trading relatives to haul seaborne goods by road from Port Harcourt or Lagos, with the attendant risks.”

The application said further: “Disparity in States structure which puts the applicant’s South-East Zone behind every other geopolitical zone in political and judicial appointments and representation at the National Assembly, as well as in revenue allocation.

It said, “Foisting low revenue allocation status on the applicant’s South-East Zone as a result of failure to exploit Oil/Gas and Coal and as a result of the said structural imbalance.

“Over-policing and police menacing of the South-East with alarming number of police ‘check-points’ at which massive extortion of billions of naira annually go on, even while violent crimes continue as if there were no police operatives.

He said, “Abandoning the South-East to be swallowed up by erosion; failing to respond to calls to check widening gullies in the South-East, especially in Agulu, Nanka and Obosi all in Anambra State, have claimed expansive farmlands and homelands and levelled homes, displacing people.”

Thus, in the application filed before Justice A. R. Mohammed of the federal high court, Enugu, has sought for 12 reliefs from the federal government to make South East zone to be in parity with other zones of the federation.

First, the senior lawyer argued that the structural composition of the states in the country was lopsided as only the South East zone has five states while others have six states each and the North-West has seven states. He pointed out that this has created a structural imbalance against him and the group he represents “to their political and economic disadvantage in federal legislative representation, ministerial/political and judicial appointments, and revenue allocation contrary to Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which requires reflection of federal character in conduct of public affairs, and accordingly a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which prohibits discrimination against the Applicant and the Group/Class represented based on Ethnic Grouping and place of origin.”

Secondly, he said that in view of the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria 1999, which prescribes not less than 13 percent of federal allocation accruing directly from natural resources to be paid to the area from where such is derived, the neglect by the first respondent of the huge coal reserves under the rocky hills of Enugu and the environs in relation to the Applicant and the Group/Class he represents, of its exclusive responsibility by item 39 in the Exclusive Legislative List, Part I Second Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, to extract the said coal deposits in commercial quantity in accordance with Section 16(2)(b)of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, while extracting solid minerals in other Geopolitical Zones, is discriminatory and a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.”

He wants the court to declare that the federal government has violated the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria 1999, which would have earned South East not less than 13 percent of federal allocation from exploration of huge oil and gas reserves which is being neglected in the Anambra Basin.

Similarly, he argued that the neglect by the federal government of the Niger Bridge, which is nearing collapse and failure to put in place a Second Niger Bridge to connect the South-East with other parts of the country, is a violation of the Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.

Agbakoba claimed that the over-policing of the South-East highways with numerous check-points by operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, NPF, was causing revenue loss to the zone because more than N9 billion annually were extorted from the South-East people, plying the roads while kidnapping and other crimes were still allowed to go on unchecked in violation of Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999. He noted that such extortion and high level of crime were not obtainable in any other geopolitical zone of the country, makes it discriminatory and a violation of the provisions of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.

He asserted that failure to “develop friendly ports and customs policies to assist traders from the South-East zone to do better in trading and on higher scale; failure to have an operational international cargo airport at Owerri to aid trading and failure to dredge the Lower Niger and establish a Port at Onitsha to aid trading, in accordance with its constitutional obligations under Section 15(4), 16(1)(a) and (2)(a) and 17(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999,” amounted to discrimination and violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.

Through such discriminatory acts, Agbakoba said the poor revenue allocation rate foisted on the South-East zone by the Nigerian state was caused by its failure to exploit Oil/Gas and Coal in the Zone and as a result of the structural imbalance of the states in the South-East.

He would want the court to similarly declare that the worsening menace of erosion in the South-East Zone generally and in particular in Agulu, Nanka and Obosi in Anambra State, was caused by federal government’s neglect, through its discriminatory acts and in violation of the 1999 Constitution.

Thus, Agbakoba would want the court to order the federal government “to forthwith prepare and release for immediate execution a comprehensive South-East Development Master Plan, SEDM, for urgent turn-around of the infrastructure in the South-East Geopolitical Zone, and the phased execution of such Master plan to be pursued with dispatch and vigour.” Besides, he said the relief must take off immediate to address repair of roads, exploration of oil and gas reserves, among others.

In the same manner, the lawyer wants the court to make a declaration that the federal government should send to the National Assembly for enactment, “a bill to establish the South-East Development Commission, SEDC, and for ancillary matters, which body shall be charged with the execution of the said Master plan and the general development of the South-East Geopolitical Zone.

 “An order directing the first respondent to forthwith put all its machinery, including but not limited to legal and political apparatus, in motion, with a view  to urgently creating two additional states in the South-East Geopolitical Zone to balance with the Seven States in the North-West, and thereby bring to an end the discriminatory practices against the South-East geopolitical zone in terms of legislative representation, political and judicial appointments and net federal allocation accruing to the Geopolitical Zone.

“An order directing the first respondent to take immediate steps to check the excessively aggressive and nefarious, yet ineffective policing of the South-East Geopolitical Zone and putting an end to the extortion going on at the ubiquitous police check-points on the highways in the South-East Geopolitical Zone.”

Above all, he wants the court give a perpetual injunction restraining the federal government “its agents, servants or privies, or otherwise howsoever from further acts of discrimination against” him and people from the South East zone.

—  May 1, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT