Two salient issues – the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and the Electoral Act amendment – generated hot debates during the week. The controversy will continue next week as President Muhammadu Buhari prepares to give assent to the bill and as the National Assembly continues to face heat over its rejection of electronic transmission of election results.
The PIB is crucial. Oil is both a fortune and an albatross. Eyes are always on the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as the foremost and dominant revenue-generating agency. It is second to none in a country that exclusively relies on oil as the mainstream of its economy. Without oil, there may be no Nigeria. Without NNPC, there is no money to share.
The two legislative activities, the Bill and the amendment, place the country at the mercy of the federal lawmakers. But, their word is not final. The last hurdle is the presidential assent. It does not appear that the final seal will be elusive.
However, the country has to prepare for the consequences of the new laws.
For 13 years, the PIB gathered dust in the National Assembly. It could not be passed into law under Obasanjo, YarAdua and Jonathan administrations. It could only see the light of the day six years after President Buhari ascended the ‘throne.’
However, criticisms have continued to trail its passage by the National Assembly. The Senate and the House of Representatives seem to have slight disagreement over few clauses. That the two chambers battled over harmonisation hurdles meant that the bill was a hard nut to crack.
Critics from the Niger Delta, the goose that lays the golden egg, are not focusing attention on the merits of the bill. They fear that its demerits clearly outweigh its merits. As the geo-political zones are locked in distributive politics, South south believes that it should have an edge because the oil is their gift of nature.
Two knotty matters are worrisome to the stakeholders from the oil-bearing zone. The first is the quantum of the NNPC money allotted for real and imagined oil prospecting in some zones To them, the 30 percent is too much for the assignment, particularly in regions outside the Niger Delta. Their major fear is that the basins in the interior may exclusively refer to some places in the North. In their commentaries, they even doubted the presence of oil in those targeted basins.
The second bone of contention is the three percent allotted to the host communities. Rejecting it, Niger Delta leaders said the amount was grossly inadequate, and an affront on the marginalised and oppressed coastal communities.
It could not be ascertained whether federal lawmakers from the Niger Delta held consultations with the leaders of the zone, ahead of deliberations in the Parliament. Were they in slumber in the National Assembly when the matter was on the table? Is the minister of state for oil happy that only three-percent pittance is given to his kinsmen? How adequate is this much advertised sense of belonging?
The PIB has become another divisive issue between the North and the South, although it was finally passed with relative ease. It may be a monumental service to restructuring to foster fiscal federalism.
The passage is coming at a time speculations are rife that the Land Use Act may be reviewed so that the Federal Government can jointly control the lands and possibly actualize RUGA, which will give unfettered access to herders from the North to the South. If it is not a conjecture, then, it is serious.
The picture of NNPC as a potential limited liability company would vest the ownership of its shares in the Federal Finance Ministry. Some nasty thoughts are being generated because the oil Minister, who is the president, the finance minister and the NNPC head are from the North. But, is the fear really unfounded?
The thirty per cent of NNPC Limited’s oil and gas profit in the production sharing, profit sharing, and risk service contracts to fund the exploration of frontier basins” is one feature of the bill that is clumsy. It is not clear to many outside the sector.
There is need for exploration to boost existing reserves. The “frontier basins” are the targets. They represents vital future assets. The scope and legal definition or interpretation appears scanty. But, it has the strong force of law. When 30 per cent is allotted in such a manner, laymen would fear that it may predispose handlers to sharp practices, unless there is an enforcement of anti-corruption law to check infractions. It is debatable.
Yet, another obstacle may have been glossed over. All the revenues collected by the Federation Account are expected to go to the Federation Account. Does it amount to an anomaly, if the parliament is seen to be making a law for the deduction of the profits of the NNPC payable into the Federation Account? Why can’t the Federal Government fund its agencies from its own share from the Federation Account as it is done in respect of the NDDC and Northeast Development Commission?
The PIB may have reinforced the maltreatment of the far-flung, oil-producing areas. The dispirited communities asked for 10 percent of the operating expenditures of oil companies. The three percent finally conceded is a manifestation of reluctant social responsibility.
Afenifere Secretary Sola Ebiseeni has pointed out that the PIB and all it represents simply compound the problem of resource allocation and justice in a federation. This is in line with the view of PANDEF that “the PIB falls short of the expectations of the Niger Delta people.”
For the Niger Delta, the struggle continues.
The Electoral Act review is not less important. It is critical to the survival of democracy. There is a general clamour for the sanctity of the ballot box. Yet, it appears there is shortage of courage by the National Assembly to take the bull by the horn and confront the challenge of electoral democracy.
Majority of the federal lawmakers demonstrated gross insensitivity. The voting pattern on the floor underscored the huge gap between personal interest and public expectation. But, in the final analysis, in whose interest is electoral malpractices?
After the electoral terrorism supervised by INEC in 2003 and 2007, agitations for electoral reforms had intensified. Civil society groups and opposition parties called for electronic voting. The clamour never yielded results.
Subsequent elections have been worse, making stakeholders to renew their demands for electronic transmission of poll results.
The belief was that votes were usually manipulated between polling stations and designated centres for collation.
In these days of e-commerce, e-banking and other technological advancement, e-voting would have been attempted to know its relative advantages. There is the argument that due to the literacy level, it may not be hitch-free.
But, there is no strong argument against electronic transmitting of poll results. Therefore, the rejection of electronic transmission of results amounted to the affirmation of business as usual; a thoughtless endorsement of rigging, manipulation and all forms of electoral fraud. It is a disservice to democracy.
For Nigeria, electoral reform is an unfinished business.
