Brother-in-law of former military dicator, General Ibrahim Babangida, Mr. Sunny Okogwu, although a southerner, decided to pitch his tent with his rich in-law, making a very controversial claim that it is an illusion for southerners to claim that oil resources belong to them because it flowed through the northern region of Nigeria.
Okogwu, an indigene of Asaba, Delta State and older brother of Mrs. Mariam Babangida told THISDAY in Kaduna at the weekend that it was the North and not the South that had legitimate claim to all the oil found in the Niger Delta region.
This, according to him, is because the oil flow from North Africa and could have been prevented from reaching the south but for the magnanimity of the North.
Okogwu, whose company, Black Gold, specialises in training pilots, assembling of aircrafts, building of flight simulators and air traffic control systems also criticized the act of hostage-taking and kidnapping of foreign oil workers by the Niger Delta militants, suggesting instead that the governors and their cronies are the ones that should be taken hostage for misappropriating the resources due to the region.
"If you have knowledge of geography you'll know that the resource they are talking about is not coming from them. It is coming from far North of Africa, it's a flowing liquid.
"If Northern Nigeria decides to be greedy, they can terminate the resource going to them, by way of cutting it and the flow will stop. So, all the resources that will be flowing to the south by way of crude would be diverted in a well in the North and from there it can be tapped and exported.
"We allow this thing to happen because of easy of exportation; water front. When the resource flows from my house and goes to the ocean, it has a network of link, and when the extractors come in, they pump this thing up, the ship is there taking it away. But if we live it in the North, transportation adds more cost," he argued.
Okowgwu, who last year stirred controversy over the alleged pact between Obasanjo and the North on power shift, described the agitation for resource control as a ploy by some people from South-south to continue to exploit the rest of the country describing it as, "a political jingo used by certain type of people to block progress, so that they will have reasons to extract. Resource control is no issue.
"Now, instead of the youths kidnapping the governors and Chairmen of parastatals and the other ones that steal the youths' welfare they are taking white men who come here to work. This should stop; let them kidnap the governors first.
"In fact, I am waiting for Mr. President to punish these governors, and if he does not punish them, I will tell Mr. President that he has lost one of the qualities of leadership, and that is a leader must be stern.
"He has said that these people are not clean, so what stops him from punishing them? He must punish these South-south governors first before he goes for taking so much money that belongs to the people and giving this money to invisible people we don't know and the money is not reaching the youths," the Asaba High Chief said.
kongwu 67, who said he had lived all his life in the North also claimed to have been responsible for the creation of most of the South-south states. He also claimed to have been the brain behind the South-south Movement, accusing the present South-south campaigners of bad fate and breakaways from Igbos.
He said: "What I have done to make South-south prominent for them to talk now, I don't think any of them did it. I created the states that all of them are using now - Edo or Delta name it, all the states of South-south, starting from IBB to Abacha.
"I wish Abacha is alive, I wish Wad Nas is alive they will tell you what I did. IBB did his own first and decreed no more creation of states, I countered it.
