The recent promise by the current leadership of the National Assembly to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in April may not be fulfilled following the rejection of the bill on Thursday by host communities and civil society groups in the Niger Delta.

In rejecting the bill, they said it was designed to further enslave oil producing communities and create confusion in the region.

Spokesperson for the CSOs and host communities in the Niger Delta, Botti Isaac, said the current PIB would not protect the host communities as it could only leave them at the mercy of the oil companies.

He also said the bill when passed and signed into law would promote confusion in the Niger Delta and further expose the communities to environmental degradation and untold hardship, adding that communities in the Niger Delta will not accept such a law.

He accused the National Assembly of not allowing a fair and adequate opportunity for vulnerable stakeholders in the region to have a say in the legislative process towards passing the PIB.

He accused the lawmakers of giving so much attention to the government and oil companies to speak on the bill.

Isaac said, “We believe that a new set of laws are necessary to govern the petroleum industry in Nigeria.

“However, the PIB’s proposals, as it is, would promote environmental impunity in the oil industry and exacerbate social dislocation in the oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta.

“On Tuesday, January 26. 2021, representatives of oil-bearing communities and civil society organisations from the Niger Delta were denied the right to participate in so-called Public Hearings organised by the Senate.

“After dedicating the first day of the hearing to take elaborate presentations from oil company representatives and government stakeholders, the Chairman of the Committee promised to allow the presentation of host communities’ views the next day.

“Unfortunately, rather than accord the representatives of oil-bearing communities the same attention, they were denied the opportunity to speak and instead asked to ceremonially hand over copies of their memorandum to the session Chairman.

“Again, we noted a similar display at the House of Representatives Hearing where members of oil host communities were denied access to the public hearing hall.

“We consider the manner the National Assembly has handled host communities and civil society contributions in these hearings as deliberately aimed at ensuring those critical voices are not heard.

“As the Petroleum Industry Bill is critical to the functionality of the oil and gas sector and the Nigerian economy, it is of utmost importance that all stakeholders are treated equally and accorded the same opportunity to discuss its contents and proposal.

“We are also profoundly concerned about the limited number of days and hours allocated to the Public Hearings on the PIB. Each day’s session lasts between 10 am and 1 pm. On the average, only about three hours are spent on the hearings each day, amounting to only six hours of public hearings in both houses of the legislature. To say the least, this is grossly inadequate and does not indicate a commitment to aggregating and considering all views.”

He said further that while the PIB remains the oldest and perhaps the most contentious bills in Nigeria’s legislature, it has suffered several setbacks, adding that “while we support a speedy passage of the Bill, we are more interested in such bill’s content and quality.

“As currently proposed, the PIB 2020 is inadequate to address the environmental, human rights and livelihoods concerns of host communities. Proposal for a host communities development fund does not support the participation of the communities in decision making.

“The governance structures proposed for the host communities fund deliberately deny any meaningful level of community participation while overtly promoting oil companies’ control and prominence.

“Oil companies described as ‘Settlors’ in the Bill are empowered to set up the Board of Trustees of the Trusts and conduct needs assessment and produce development plans on behalf of host communities. We believe that the level of emphasis on oil companies could fuel oil industry divide-and-rule tactics and stoke communal conflicts.

“It is also important to note that environmental pollution concerns are almost entirely ignored as the Executive Bill focuses more on production and commercial viability of the industry. The PIB 2020 ‘disempowers’ federal and state environmental agencies from the monitoring and enforcement of environmental regulations in the petroleum industry.

 “While Nigeria records the highest and unacceptable levels of crude oil spills globally, and the country is among the worst in gas flaring globally, the PIB 2020 fails woefully in addressing these issues. There is no clear provision for addressing environmental pollution and sanctioning polluters. The bill fails to introduce any new measures to encourage the elimination of routine gas flaring.

“A key source of contention in the PIB, at least from the point of view of host communities, is the fact that it places responsibility for the protection of pipeline and other oil infrastructures with the communities.

“According to the Bill, the host community advisory committee ‘take responsibility for first line protection of facilities and ensure that petroleum operations are uninterrupted by members of their community failing which, benefits from the trust to the host community shall be.

He argued that placing the protection of oil installations on some unarmed host communities is unrealistic as “previous researches conducted by Social Action reveals that oil theft which is the major reason for puncturing oil pipelines is carried out mainly by armed cartels who are most times not even members of the community”.

He stressed if this provisions of the law is allowed to stand, “it could result in consistent denial of benefits which could in turn engender conflicts.”