New law makes North oil producing community, says pipelines pass through it – PIB
Some “fictitious clauses” have been inserted in the just concluded draft law of the Petroleum Industry Bill recently passed by the Senate.
The strange clauses, automatically make all Northern States through which oil pipelines traverse to be Oil Producing Communities.
The new law as passed by the Senate, makes State such as Kogi, Niger, Kaduna and others where pipelines pass through to sip oil from the far away South-South States to Kaduna rafinery to become Oil Producing States.
In an obvious presence of Southern State Senators, their Northern counterparts have succeeded to redefine “Oil Producing Communities” to mean, any community that oil pipeline passes through.
While Southern State Senators who always claim to be more educated and politically exposed than Northerners, the North again introduced another fictitious clause called “Frontier Exploration” and Southern State Senators applauded them.
For the “Frontier Exploration”, the Senate has allotted 30% of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation – NNPC profit to service the Frontier Exploration every year, while 3% is the compensation payment for Southern Nigeria Oil Producing Communities of which some Northern States will still benefit just for having pipelines passing through them.
Again, remember that the search for oil which brought about the “Frontier Exploration” is only in the North near lake Chad basin, meaning Borno State and other adjoining States.
In total, the Senate is expecting to have 30 to 48% of NNPC profit allotted to the North through a semantic just introduced as “Frontier Exploration”.
The present crops of Southern State National Assembly members are not true Representatives of the South. Pundits say the are all busy lobbying Northern counterparts to speak to relevant power broker about their gubernatorial elections or return ticket to NASS in 2023, while their Northern colleagues use their 2023 ambitions to buy the South from their hands.
What is keeping the Petroleum Industry Bill – PIB to be signed into law, is the ratification of the Bill in the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Once this law is allowed to scale through and the President signs it into law, it will be practically impossible for the North to accept any amendment of any section of it, hence various interest groups and political stakeholders in the South are mobilizing Southern State NASS members to reject the 3% allotted to Oil Producing Communities, reject the definition of Oil Producing Communities which for Ahmad Lawan Senate means ” Any Communities where Oil pipelines pass through” and also reject the “Frontier Exploration” jargon which gives the North almost 48% of NNPC yearly profits.
