VANGUARD

THE South-South Study Group has told the leadership of the senate to reverse with immediate effect most of the decisions on the just passed Petroleum Industry Act amendment Bill, describing it as “provocative” bill.

The South-South Study Group made up of professionals from the states that make up the Niger Delta region also warned that the ambit of tolerance and reason of the Niger Delta people was running out.

The group in a statement issued Thursday and signed by Prince Otoks Dan-Princewill urged those that love peace and prosperity in the country to prevail to ensure a “reverse of the PIB provocation.”

The group also claimed that a lobby group from the north led by a highly placed monarch engineered what transpired in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act Amendment Bill.

The statement read: “The Senate of Nigeria is currently presided over by a senator from Gashua in Bade, Yobe State. Assuming that a Governor from a South-South state visits Gashua, Nguru, Geidam all in Bade, Yobe state to collect all the money made from rice, millet, maize, and wheat from the valleys of Bade as federal rent for using the water resources.

“And after collecting the money sets aside ten percent only, from the hundred percent the farmers made for themselves (the farmers), then changes his mind, divides the ten percent into two, and just before giving the half or five percent to the farmers, changes his mind again, deciding that he needs more of that ten percent, and because of this divides the five percent into two portions, taking another two percent of it to add to the five percent he has already taken, making seven percent taken away from the meagre ten percent apportioned to the farmers and leaving them with only 3 percent, from the one hundred percent of their toil. Will the Governor of the South-South state come out of Bade alive?

“Most people will cry for justice for the Bade farmers, but the plight of the people of the Niger Delta is worse than the hypothetical case for Bade farmers. In real life, Bade farmers including farmers from Gashua, have never had to worry about the Federal Government collecting any rent from their resources.

“But the Senator, who presides over what the Niger-Delta people will get from Petroleum rent has never had to preside over Federal rent in Bade. Yet the Niger-Delta people have had to worry about suppression and deprivation from time immemorial, during and including the period under white rule in the colonial era.

“Worse still, they continue to endure the same misery, suppression, and deprivation regarding entitlement to the share of their own natural resources under fellow Nigerian leaders.

” The misery grows worse as each subsequent leadership gets greedier and greedier thus, raising the question: what will it take the Niger-Delta people to get justice?

” The South-South Study Group, concerned about the sheer audacity of the disdain shown to the Niger-Delta people by the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), invites Nigerians to reflect on how in a Federal Democratic System, the National Assembly, made up of people elected from Nationalities thousands of kilometers away from oil-bearing localities, that have never conquered any of the oil-bearing localities in a war, did not invest anything in drilling for petroleum in any of these localities, can have powers to confiscate the natural resources of the people and determine what meagre ratio to give them from profits made from such resources by foreign elements they apportioned the land to arbitrarily.

“Yet if the people of the localities revolt, they will be branded as terrorists; how did the liberty promised by a Federal Democracy breed such tyranny? How often must the Niger-Delta people ask, what it will take to get justice?

” The Niger-Delta people did not join in the agitations to be free from the autarky of White colonial rule so that the colonial yoke will be replaced with the yoke of its fellow citizens, near and far flung. But that is precisely the fate that has befallen them in Nigeria.

“On 23rd November 1957 the Willink Commission received complaints about the burdens being borne by minorities, particularly those in the Niger Delta area and the fifth recommendation of the Commission was that there should be a Special Development Board for Niger Delta areas.

“Since that recommendation, the region has had the Niger Delta Development Board (1958), the Oil Minerals Producing and Development Commission (1992), the Niger Delta Development Commission (1992), and the Ministry of Niger Delta (2008). In all of these, the real intended beneficiaries have remained deprived and marginalized; the one opportunity meant for them to directly benefit from a portion of their resources is continuously being deliberately dashed by the opportunism of people who have no spicule of empathy for the Niger-Delta people.

“Whereas the Niger-Delta oil-bearing communities sought 20% from the production rents, they were pressured to settle for 10% hours before the final votes in both chambers of the National Assembly.”

The group alleged that an influential religious leader from the north addressed a Northern Lobby Group gathered at Zuma Resort in Abuja and urged the legislators to ensure that the PIB that will be passed encourages massive hydrocarbon exploration in the frontier basins of Sokoto, Chad, Gongola, Bida and Benue troughs.

According to the statement, “Hours later, the members of the Northern caucus, behaving worse than British colonialists, apportioned 30% of the profits from petroleum rents from the PIB to frontiers’ exploration… while at the same time slashing the ten percent sought by the owners of the oil-bearing communities from five percent they had previously offered to three percent. What will it take for the Niger-Delta people to get justice?

“Nigerian despots have always tried to deprive the Niger-Delta people of their dues regarding petroleum rents. Between 1971 and 1992, elements in the Nigerian Military introduced the dichotomy between onshore and offshore oil in other to deprive the Niger-delta of the larger chunk of profits from petroleum rents.

“Once again, many of the said elements and their proxies were in the Zuma Resort meeting in Abuja hours before the PIB was passed. Using the dichotomy, they took the entire hundred percent of the offshore earning, and slashed the earnings from onshore oil (un)progressively downwards, to twenty percent (20%) in 1975, zero percent (0%) in 1979, two percent (2%) in 1982, one and half percent (1.5%) in 1984 and three percent (3%) in 1992.

“In 2021, they are back to the same old oppressive game and have slashed what should be due to the owners of the oil, the oil-bearing communities to 3% while offering 30% to a fruitless search for oil in their frontier basins that has been wastefully going on for over thirty years.

“Again the South-South Study group must ask, what it will take to get justice for the Niger-delta people? What happened to the oil-bearing communities emanating from the conspiracy of the Northern lobby group hosted at Zuma Rock in Abuja… , is emblematic of the type of (in)justice the Niger-Delta has been receiving since oil was first commercially explored in Oloibiri in 1956.

“The Northern lobby group asked for support for frontier oil exploration in the Northern basins and troughs and within twenty-four hours they got thirty percent of the oil-rent profits allocated to them, whereas the owners of the oil, the oil-bearing communities sought twenty percent for about twenty-four years, were offered five percent instead which, was finally slashed to three percent.

“Where is the justice for the Niger Delta people? What must the Niger Delta people do to get men and women to reason beyond their greed?

“The ambit of tolerance and reason is running out in the Niger Delta. The South-South Study group urges all men and women who love peace and prosperity to reverse the PIB provocation.”