..Says no N/Deltan should celebrate PIA

By Chioma Onuegbu, Uyo

A Non Governmental Organization,’We the People’ has criticised the Federal government and the 36 state governors of Nigeria for allowing Oil Companies to continue to flare gas in spite of the environmental and dangerous health it has caused the people of Oil producing communities in the Niger Delta region over the decades.

The Executive Director of the Organization, Mr. Ken Henshaw spoke weekend in Eket local government area, during a Community Environmental Monitoring training organised by Home of Mother Earth Foundation , (HOMEF) for Ibeno and Joinkrama Communities in Akwa Ibom and Rivers States respectively.

He regretted that each time the deadline put in to stop gas flaring in the approaches, the Oil companies, especially Shell and Exxonmobil would blackmail the Nigerian government that they would stop production and the deadline would be shifted to a new date.

His words: “Gas flaring has been considered illegal and a criminal activity in Nigeria since 1979. But when the oil companies blackmail the Nigerian government, the government will shift the Gas flare deadline.

“They keep blackmailing the Nigerian government because they know that Nigeria cannot survive without Oil money. What all the 36 governors know is to go to Abuja to collect money. So far they have moved the Gas flaring deadline for 8 times in Nigeria.

“In fact the last one was when former mInister of State for Petroleum resources, Ibe Kachukwu, came on Air, and announced everywhere, at conferences, that Gas flaring in Nigeria will be brought to an end in the year 2020. Everybody celebrated including myself, and we started reminding him about the date.

“But just in December 2020 they sacked Ibe Kachukwu and then the Minister of Environment came out and said that there is now a World Bank framework that will stop Gas Flaring in 2030 and that Nigeria is joining that one, no more 2020 framework.

“So we changed our target to 2030. But as 2030 is drawing close, they realized, two years is gone already, and only 8years is left. So they now went to Climate change conference and made a new commitment.

“In fact Nigeria is now working on what is called ‘Net Zero” emission. It is a commitment Nigeria has made that all Hydrocarbon pollution, including Gas flaring would now end in the year 2050″

Henshaw expressed concern that with the new date, the people of oil producing communities would continue to suffer the negative effects of gas flaring for over two more decades.

He therefore advised that Niger Deltans should not celebrate the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) because it allows for gas flaring, reiterating that the Act was not drafted to benefit or the Niger Delta region, but the oil companies.

He particularly frowned at the provision of the ACT regarding the 3 percent Host communities Trust that if there is any act of sabotage, including pipeline vandalism, or civil disobedience, the communies will pay for whatever cost billed for the destruction.

“I bet you, the new PIA is such that the oil producing communities will be the one owing the Oil Companies. Some people are being paid billions of naira to protect Oil facilities. When there is Oil theft nobody holds them to account, but when there is Oil spill they want to hold the communities to Account.

“Nobody from the Niger Delta should celebrate the PIA. You can see that the PIA has been drafted in such a way that what it gives you (the communies) with the right hand,, it takes with the left hand and takes even more. Clearly it is a criminal Law.

” Again, they will be the one to carry out NEEDS Assessment for the impacted Communities. Another worrisome thing is that what the PIA has actually done is to package the Oil Communities and handed them over to the Oil Companies as their property.

“So I am shocked at those clapping for the PIA because there is nothing to clap there, but there is a lot to cry in the PIA. The PIA actually allows gas flaring to continue. This is something that is poisoning and killing our people, but the government said it can continue, as long as the companies pay fine for gas they flare.

“And that fine is not even going to be used for the benefit of the people suffering Heath issues, rather it is put into a fund that will help them to explore more gas in Frontier Basins mostly in Northern Nigeria..That is because the Federal government of Nigeria sees Niger Delta as a source of getting money.

“So part of the reason that Health of Mother Earth Foundation and its partners have brought this meeting together is that time is up. The reality is that they will always keep something in front of us to look forward to, and time is going. Let’s wake up”, Henshaw asserted