PIB has further denied Niger Delta prospects of benefitting from oil —Omene, Urhobo leader

Chief Joe Omene, the president-general of the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), the umbrella body of Urhobo people, worldwide, spoke with EBENEZER ADUROKIYA on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) generating tension across stakeholders in the Southern Nigeria. Excerpts:

THE contentious and delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was eventually passed by the Senate and House of Representatives last week. What’s your take?

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 per cent for host oil-bearing communities, what had been passed eventually as Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is a betrayal of lofty dreams  after  decades of legislative macabre dance and relentless conspiracies. A paltry three per cent, 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 that host communities must not be given the insultive and unacceptable 5% they initially offered. Even this unacceptable  3% 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 3% 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.

What, to you, is the import of conflating host oil-producing communities with non-oil-bearing host communities in the proposed 3 percent or five percent?

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 device 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.

The 30 per cent allocated to frontier oil exploration in the North is another aspect of the PIB, which even Southern state governors have kicked against. How do you see it?

UPU notes also with concern, the provision that allocated a huge 30% 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 away from. This is a ploy to use NNPC to channel a huge 30 percent of oil proceeds to the North yet host oil communities of Niger-Delta are given three percent. Investing such amount  in more promising equity related to technological advances in renewable energy, ecotourism and marine infrastructure development in the Niger-Delta that will help revive and compensate a region and people from whom so much has been taken from unfairly without reciprocal rewards.  The long-awaited PIB that that our people had thought would redress the injustices contained in the old petroleum law against the people of Niger-Delta turned out to be  a pampered pregnant Elephant that disappointedly delivered a mouse.

What’s the way out of the logjam in the country? How do we achieve peace and progress?

The pre-conditions for peace and progress of any society are equity, fairness, justice, acknowledgment of, recognition and respect for diversity, between majority and minority groups through inclusive partnership for development. It is no longer possible in a world of today to make progress according to what suits the majority group by ignoring and suppressing minority interests and for how long? The broad outline of the 21st century demands recognising and appreciating (valuing) diversity by managing it. The current gang up by Northern lawmakers against the efforts of South West and South East Legislators to bring succour to the people of the South-South is an ill-wind that will do them no good as the fingers of providence will continue to pass its verdict on them as unjust people who failed to understand that majority implies the breath of tolerance and empathy that enables society to renew itself in a fast changing world.

How do you describe the general mood of the ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta as regards the PIB?

The Urhobo nation is unhappy with what northern lawmakers have done, just like our neighbours and brother ethnic groups of ljaws, ltshekiri, lsoko, Ndokwa, Afang, Ibibbio, Ogoni and all other ethnic groups across the Niger-Delta whose resources Nigeria has been using  to sustain a difficult and dysfunctional country. The biggest gas plant in Africa is in Urhobo land with a huge deposit of gas, as well as a petrol chemical company yet, our people have no access, control nor any significant benefits from these resources. Given that this PIB has further denied the people the prospect of benefitting from their resources and the growing restiveness, UPU is constrained to ask northern lawmakers and the Federal Government the following pertinent questions: firstly, how will denying the host communities the meagre 5% or 10% instead of 50% as agreed before independence promote peace in the communities across Niger-Delta? What happens if youth uprising and militancy stops all activities? Will anyone make any profits? Will the greedy profits now estimated hypothetically on paper not become fantasies and big fat percentages of zero if the region is engulfed in violence? Is it not a clear evidence of short-sightedness to think that those who have been treated shabbily and given the short-end of the benefits of their resources, the host communities, particularly the youth will react against business to continue as usual?

Secondly, is it also not a clear evidence of short-sightedness, refusing to see the dangers of the growth of the electric car industry, given that crude oil is  an asset that will directly compete with electric batteries and the people of the Niger-Delta whose lands have been destroyed because of decades of oil exploration? If northern lawmakers truly have regard for the people of Niger-Delta,  shouldn’t they join hands with their southern counterparts of South West and south East and use this opportunity of  the PIB  for compensation and redress, instead of the uncaring and insensitive diluted version of the PIB that was passed to rub the injuries of injustice on our people deeper?

Thirdly, it is not an unpatriotic act of poor national decision making for lawmakers through the PIB to commit as much as 30% of profits to future investment in oil frontier areas in the north where billions have been wasted for decades with diminishing returns rather than diversification into renewable energy investments in the Niger-Delta that they have exploited for decades? Why so much  ease to part with 30% of profits through NNPC  to non-profitable endeavours in unproductive frontiers,  supervised by over-rewarded technocrats and consultants who suffer nothing near what host  communities  have to put up with now or in the future ? Is it not the height of insensitivity and provocation to give 3% to Niger-Delta and 30% through NNPC to North under the guise of “oil frontiers?

What’s UPU’s advice to National Assembly members from the South ahead of the joint session of both chambers to finally pass the bill to the president for his assent into law?

UPU, having studied and reviewed the PIB as passed by the National Assembly against the background of the alienation of our people from the benefits of the exploitation of oil and gas in our communities for decades, and having considered the exploitation that continues while our region remains the most difficult place to leave and prosper despite the prosperity that oil wealth has brought to other parts of Nigeria, the UPU hereby joins the Oil-Bearing Host Communities in rejecting the 3% granted to Oil-Bearing Host communities and Pipe-line Bearing Host Communities and restate our demand for a minimum of 20%. We reject the indistinct omnibus definition of host communities and other aspects of the bill. UPU urges all sons and daughters of our nation as well as our brother ethnic groups in the entire Niger-Delta region to ignore, dismiss and disregard any and all comments or statements on behalf of Urhobos from any quarters.

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