Wike’s revelation stirs controversy in Niger Delta States over 13 percent derivation

The dust raised by Governor Nyesom Wike’s revelation on the payment of 13% derivation fund arrears by the federal government to Niger Delta States is yet to settle.

Governor Wike of Rivers State had over a week ago, during a project commissioning, revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari had paid the arrears of 13% derivation fund owed since 1999 to all the Niger Delta States.

The revelation, which some perceived as politically motivated, had generated a lot of reactions from members of the public across the Niger Delta States, including Akwa Ibom.

Some benefiting States, such as Delta, Edo and Bayelsa immediately came out to explain the amount gotten from FG and how it was expended.

Delta State claimed that it had only received the sum of N14.7 billion as refund from the 13 percent oil derivation in three quarterly instalments of N4.9 billion each.

It added that the actual shortfall due to the state was N250 billion, which the Federal Government agreed to pay in quarterly instalments for a period of five years.

“Senator (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa said he would not want to leave the next administration with a huge debt burden. He resorted to discounting only N150 billion out of the N240 billion expected receivables but later pruned it down to N100 billion,” The state noted.

Similarly, Edo State said it received N2.1bn refund out of N28 billion expected, which was paid in three instalments of N700 million per quarter.

However, the delay by the Akwa Ibom State government to come out with the amount of monies received as arrears and how it was expended gave room to speculations and brandishing of figures from different quarters.

Firstly, the governorship candidate of the Young Progressives Party, YPP, in Akwa Ibom State, Senator Bassey Akpan during a ward campaign tour alleged that governor Udom Emmanuel had received a sum of $1.1 billion (N600 billion), outside the normal Federal Allocation, regretting that nothing could be shown for that in the State