The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of
the Earth Nigeria has attributed the failure of
the last National Assembly to pass the
Petroleum Industry Bill to the lawmakers
politicizing the bill.
The group said this on Thursday at a press
conference on the PIB in Lagos.
The ERA/FoEN’s Executive Director,
Godwin Ojo, said that some of the
lawmakers not only compromised but
openly challenged pro-people provision in
the bill.
“Some of them became the mouthpiece of
Shell and other oil companies that
threatened to pull out of Nigeria’s oil and
gas operations if the PIB was passed,” Mr.
Ojo said.
“They not only betrayed the wishes of the
people but succumbed to cheap blackmail of
the oil companies that the PIB would render
the oil and gas industry unviable.”
The PIB was first introduced into the
National Assembly in 2008 as an executive
bill by then president, Umar Yar’Adua.
The Sixth National Assembly (2007 – 2011)
failed to pass the bill.
The bill was re-introduced into the National
Assembly in 2012 by President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Last June, 47 out of the 360 members of the
House of Representatives in the Seventh
Assembly (2011 – 2015) were present when
the bill was passed a few hours to the end of
their tenure. But the bill failed to get a
concurrent passage from the Senate.
Mr. Ojo described the passage of the bill by
the House of Representatives as a “sheer
mockery of legislative process.”
”The actions were not only hypocritical and
cosmetic but also face-saving, hence it was
roundly condemned by Nigerians,” he said.
“The bottlenecks strewn on the way of the
PIB and the failure through self-censorship
of the last Assembly to make the bill become
law clearly showed that there were behind-
the-scene powers at play to keep our people
down.
“The basis of kick-starting yet another
process in the eighth National Assembly to ensure that the
PIB is passed into law is hinged on the promises of the
President Muhammadu Buhari administration to tackle the
myriad problems besetting the Nigerian environment
especially the Niger Delta.”
Reviewing the PIB
President Muhammadu Buhari in August approved a US$10
million take-off grant for the implementation of the United
Nations Environmental Programme Assessment on
Ogoniland.
ERA/FoEN said that it hopes the PIB will also get equal
attention as an Executive Bill.
The group also demanded for a review of some sections of
the PIB to make it “more people-oriented and
environmentally sound.”
Mr. Ojo said that the draft PIB grants excessive powers to the
minister of petroleum as well as the oil companies.
“We do not want a bill that will be referred to as the
‘Minister’s PIB’ as this will defeat the key objectives of the
bill in providing a level playing ground for all actors while
creating efficient and effective regulatory agencies,” he said.
“It will surprise the present government that the actual
volume of oil produced in Nigeria is either unknown or
undisclosed. ERA/FoEN advocates that the point of oil
extraction, transport lines, flow stations and export terminals
must be installed with real time digital metering system as is
currently the practice globally.”
The group also recommended an amendment of the section
on Health, Safety and Environment to reflect that the Federal
Ministry of Environment coordinate, develop and
implement a holistic environmental policy.
The group welcomed the Petroleum Host Communities Fund
with ten percent equity from oil and gas receipts in the draft
bill.
“However, rather than the fund to be administered by the
minister there should be provision for local communities
empowerment in the setting up of Community Trust Funds
to administer this for rural development,” said Mr. Ojo.
“The PIB must clearly define the term host communities and
state the criteria for inclusion. The definition of host
community should accommodate host to oil facilities, oil
field/well head hosts and potential impact victims. In this
regard, everybody that is or will be affected will find some
level of protection under this law.”
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