…Describes Bill As ‘Satanic Verse’
Former President of the Movement for the survival of Ogoni people (MOSOP), Mr. Legborsi Saro Pyagbara called on the people of the Niger Delta region to distance themselves from the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which has been passed by the National Assembly.
The former MOSOP leader in a statement issued in Port Harcourt said leaders of the Niger Delta and her people should reject the bill as, according to him, it is a reinforcement of the slavish treatment that has been meted to the people over the years.
“You have purportedly created a Host Communities Fund whose management, administration and membership is controlled by the oil companies, leaving the communities without any real control over the Fund.
“You intend to hold expenditure on such infrastructural repair will be forfeited by communities from the Fund. Whose responsibility is it to protect oil infrastructures?”, he asked.
According to Pyagbara, the biggest rape in the bill is the so-called devotion of 30% of NNPC profit to oil exploration in frontier basins in an era when the world is talking about decarbonization of the energy sector and moving away from dependence on fossil fuel driven energy sources, opining that the fund ought to be devoted to renewable energy development.
He recalled that in 2004, MOSOP presented a shadow report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in which it raised concerns about the obnoxious nature of the 1969 Petroleum Decree and the Land Use Act particularly in the area of effective community participation.
“Amongst others, the Committee in its concluding observations and recommendations called on the Nigerian government to repeal the 1969 Petroleum Decree and also recommend the reform of the Land Use Act”, he disclosed while asking, “Does the PIB in its current form assure us of community participation the entire value chain of the Industry in areas they can play a role”.
Stressing that affirmative action remains the panacea to address the issues of exclusion, discrimination and seeming backwardness of a particular group in a particular sector of their national life, the ex-MOSOP President declared that for over 60 years of oil exploration in Nigeria, the people of the Niger Delta have been exploited and excluded in the activities of the oil industry.
“How many Niger Delta people own oilwells and marginal fields? How many Niger Delta people operate at the echelons of the oil industry? Do you not expect a new law of this nature to address some of these concerns especially targeted at bringing the Niger Delta people and their businessmen to become active players in the industry through a deliberate process of positive discrimination?”, he asked.
Pragbara described what he called the lip service being paid to environmental protection, as ridiculous and unacceptable while stressing that the duplicity of the role of the Environment Ministry in the area of environmental management plan is suspicious.
Concluding, he said: “This satanic verse perfected in satanic sanctums and dressed in the garment of legislation to pave way for another wave of recolonization of the Niger Delta must be rejected by the peoples of the Niger Delta. It is time we rise up together as a people against this Bill”.
