From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) has described the Petroleum Industry Bill PIB) passed by the National Assembly as a betrayal of lofty dreams.
Its President General, Joe Omene, in a statement said the union rejected the three percent allocated to the oil producing communities.
He expressed disappointment that the long awaited PIB the people of Niger Delta region had thought would address the injustices contained in the old petroleum law against the region, has turned out to be a pampered pregnant elephant that disappointedly delivered a mouse.
UPU said the provision that allocated a huge 30 percent of profits for further frontier oil exploration in the North was a source of concern, especially in a fast changing world of investment shifts away from fossil oil.
The union described this as a ploy to use Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to channel a huge 30 percent of oil proceeds to the North while giving host oil communities of Niger-Delta just three percent.
“The content of the PIB that had just been passed separately by the two chambers of the National Assembly, a continuation of decades of injustice to the people of the Niger Delta didn’t come to us as a surprise.
“That is why peace has eluded the region for decades due to the oppression and suppression of the people through the unjust exploitation of the wealth of the region with little or nothing to show for it.
“After years of delays because of the insistence of the people of the region for a just and fair share of their resources with the demand for a minimum of 20 percent for host oil-bearing communities, what had been passed eventually as PIB is a betrayal of lofty dreams after decades of legislative macabre dance and relentless conspiracies.
“A paltry three percent, is what northern lawmakers felt should be for the owners and host oil communities, a culmination of a game of wits between southern legislators who wanted justice for our people versus northern lawmakers who connived with international oil companies (IOCs) and their principals to ensure host communities must not be given the unacceptable five percent they initially offered.
“Even this unacceptable three percent is also redefined to include any pipeline bearing communities such as those areas in the North where oil pipelines pass through to convey petroleum products entitled to the same three percent that oil-bearing communities from where oil is drilled will be entitled.
“By all intents and purposes, this bill denies the people of Niger Delta a commensurate entitlement of the resources in our lands while handing out generous benefit for everyone in the value chain other than the owners of the resources, in particular, increasing profits of IOC investors and other people outside the communities that own the resources and suffer the most from the devastating environmental consequences oil exploration activities
“The mischievous decision to conflate host oil communities with non-oil-bearing communities in defining host community is a device, first to set up communities against themselves within our region and to recruit other communities against the oil-bearing communities, an old devise of divide and rule colonialist strategy to keep our people busy fighting themselves, otherwise a clear distinction ought to have been be made between the former and the latter that are mere pipeline and related infrastructure bearing communities.
“UPU notes also with concern, the provision that allocated a huge 30 percent of profits for further frontier oil exploration in the North in a fast changing world of investment shifts away from fossil oil, an endeavour from which most oil investors are increasingly diversifying from,” the union said.