Blessing Iruoma, Port Harcourt
As reactions continue to trail the signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, a nongovernmental organisation, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has said that the action sends a wrong signal to the oil extraction impacted peoples, communities and other Nigerians who expected a listening ear at Aso Rock.
Recalled that the Presidential spokesperson, Mr. Femi Adesina had, on Monday, informed that President Buhari had assented to the bill in his determination to fulfill his constitutional duty.
The movement towards the PIB had been a rough ride for people of the Niger Delta and other stakeholders since the days of the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
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On July 1, 2021, the Senate and the House of Representatives had recommended a 3% and 5% respectively to host communities.
Reacting to the signing into law of the PIB, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, Director of HOMEF, stated, “I had believed and expected that he would listen to the voices of Nigerians who have suffered over six decades of unmitigated ecological assault and socio-economic marginalisation”.
Bassey noted that there were some key defects in the bill that needed to be addressed before being signed into law.
He continued, “One is that it makes nonsense of Nigeria’s climate change Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). It also locks in gas flaring which is a major emitter of greenhouse gases by extending a regime of insignificant fines.
“In addition, at a time when the world is shifting from fossil fuels, 30% of the profit of the NNPC would already be sunk into searching for oil field dusters or bottomless speculative search for crude oil in so-called frontier basins.”
HOMEF believes that the PIB will not halt the move by oil companies to shift offshore and leave their mess in already traumatised communities, adding that the oil companies are making moves in order to escape accountability.
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HOMEF also stated that the Host Community funds as set up will have an overbearing influence of oil companies.
“The bill is very colonial system in its construction, giving oil companies virtually absolute powers to ride roughshod over the interest of Niger Delta communities in terms of who sets up the boards and who decides what projects get to be executed. Tied to this is the criminalization of communities over oil facilities incidents as communities cannot be held accountable for incidents done by individuals.”
Bassey compares holding communities accountable for inability of corporations to secure their pipelines and wellhead as comparable to ascribing banditry to a whole community simply because a bandit carried out nefarious actions in their territory.
“The clause criminalising communities appear to be inserted so as to ensure that the host communities’ funds eventually are used to pay for the irresponsible action of oil companies who neither carry out needed integrity checks on their facilities nor replace obsolete ones”, HOMEF boss added.