Court Orders FG to pay Bayelsa $951m 13% Derivative Arrears

The Federal High Court, Abuja, yesterday, ordered the Federal Government to pay $951 million to the Bayelsa State Government.

The amount is the 13 per cent derivative sum due as arrears of revenue and payable to Bayelsa State.

See also World Bank blames CBN for Nigeria’s FX Woes.

Justice Inyang Ekwo, who delivered the judgment, held that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), the sole defendant in the case, failed to enter his defence in the suit.

Justice Ekwo ruled that the development made the court to declare the plaintiff’s case “unchanged.”

Ken Njemanze filed the suit on behalf of the Bayelsa government. The plaintiff, in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/175/2012 and filed on February 12, urged the court to compel the AGF to pay five per cent of $50 billion recovered as additional revenue that accrued to the Federal Government.

It would be recalled that the Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers states government had sued the AGF at the Supreme Court, demanding an upward adjustment of the shares of revenues accruing to the Federal Government whenever the price of crude oil exceeds $20 per barrel.

In the apex court verdict delivered in October 2018, John Okoro, ordered the Federal Government to embark on an upward adjustment of the shares of revenues accruing to the government whenever the price of crude oil exceeds $20 per barrel.

The three oil states in the Niger Delta: Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa-Ibom, had approached the Supreme Court for interpretation of Section 16(1) of the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act in suit number SC964/2016 filed on their behalf by their lead counsel, Lucius Nwosu (SAN).

The particular section requires the Federal Government to adjust the shares of the revenue accruable to the federation,