Niger Delta states can take 100% of oil revenues, but — Atiku 

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has said that he is willing to let Nigeria’s oil producing states have absolute control of crude oil revenues from their domains, but added that he is reluctant to immediately implement such policies at this stage of national development. The PDP candidate told The Africa Report that federating units once had considerable control of their resources, unlike the current federal laws that only allows 13 percent derivation for states in the Niger-Delta, where Nigeria’s sweet crude is extracted. Although he acknowledged the appropriate sharing formula might be difficult to say at this point — suggesting it would depend on ‘negotiations’— he recommended a limited role for the federal government in appropriating crude revenues. According to him, ‘’Nigerian states can get more because in the First Republic, the regions had 50/50. I don’t mind giving even 100%, but I would tax those states to maintain the federal government.” But the former vice president recognised that this is “not advisable at this stage of our development.” “Even during the First Republic, there was this derivation sharing between revenues and resources, or between the regions and the federal government. So, I think we could have a middle course. It would be unfair to ask me for specifics because that will depend on negotiations,” he said. Of all the presidential candidates for the 2019 election, he has emerged the most vocal advocate of restructuring, an ideological standpoint that canvasses more powers for states at the expense of the central government. He believes Nigeria’s subsisting constitution, which recommends a federal system but implements a unitary one, should be urgently reviewed and replaced with a sovereign document that would engender a more peaceful and economically viable nation.