Nigeria spent on diplomacy and arms to support that just fight came from the oil in the Niger Delta. Mandela spent 27 years in jail and others who survived spent longer terms. Today, history has changed and the jailbirds are now the rulers of the land there. The 17 southern governors of Nigeria who will file out today for the trial are, in their little ways, like the ANC cadres who were jailed for life. The freedom fighters in Southern Africa challenged the1913 racist law that stole 87 per cent of the land for the exclusive use of the white minority.
Land is also the issue in the resource control debate in Nigeria.
In the specific instance of the Bola Ige suit, the federal government is saying that the coastal states have no claim to revenue derivable from resources in the portions of the sea that borders each state. There is enough bone here for lawyers to pick. Last Friday I spoke to Professor Itse Sagay who should know these matters because he did his doctoral thesis on the Namibian situation under German and South African occupation. Sagay says the federal government has no case because it does not own any territory besides that of the federal capital of Abuja. He says further that in international law, the sea or ocean that borders any community is an extension of the land of that community.