Legal luminary Femi Falana has urged the federal government to give oil bloc licenses to state governments rather than individuals, so they can better perform their responsibilities, including the payment of salaries to civil servants.

Speaking during the 5th Comrade Yinka Odumakin Memorial Lecture on Thursday in Ikeja, Lagos State, on the topic, “Can Nigeria’s Democracy Work Without Restructuring?”, Mr Falana alleged that individuals have become dangerously rich not because they are hardworking.

Mr Falana said, “You take oil resources from the Niger Delta, and you give licenses of oil blocs. You don’t know they give oil blocs to themselves? The owners of oil blocs are the richest people in Nigeria. There’s a lady in Lagos, they say she’s the richest lady in Africa, why? She has an oil bloc, not that she’s more hardworking than your mother, no.

“There is a general, a pensioner, he’s the richest pensioner in Africa, he has an oil bloc. In fact, in his own case, they don’t invest in oil bloc, they just take it offshore, and sell the licenses to the Chinese or Europeans, then he’ll come home, a multi-billionaire.”

Alleging that state governments do not want to control their resources but privatise them, Mr Falana recalled that, “when state governments could not pay salaries, I asked the FG, why are you giving oil blocs to individuals? Give them to states and local governments. Today, more and more people are becoming dangerously rich at the expense of all of us.”

According to Mr Falana, those who have oil blocs are now being given licenses to mine solid minerals, adding that many communities are now being degraded by those who are mining mineral resources.