Simon Etinum, Yenagoa
The umbrella body of Ijaw elders and leaders, the Ijaw National Congress (INC) Worldwide, has rejected outright the three or five per cent passed by the National Assembly in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) for Host Communities Development Trust Fund.
President, INC, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, announced the rejection on Monday after an executive meeting of the congress and insisted that anything short of 10 per cent compensation to host communities was unacceptable.
Okaba called on President Muhammadu Buhari to demonstrate statesmanship by taking bold steps to douse the rising tension by refraining from signing the bill until the National Assembly approves 10% as the HCDTF.
He also urged the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, to inscribe his name in gold and be on the side of posterity by standing firm with his people and against those who had vowed to continuously deny the Ijaw the control and management of their God-given resources.
According to him, it had clearly shown that the only thing those against the Ijaw nation valued about them was their oil and not what they suffer even in extracting the resources from the bowels of their ancestral land.
Okaba asked their legislators and top government officials who play leading roles in Buhari’s administration to throw their weight behind the will and wish of the people by rejecting the slavish allotment and support the host communities for a better deal which is a minimum of 10%.
“We reject in its entirety the 3% and 5% provisions as compensation, the redefinition of host communities and other provisions including the allocation of 30% of our oil resources to grope in the dark in the name of exploitation of a paradox of extreme kind that is not in symphony with common sense, equity and good conscience.
“The Ijaw nation is more convinced that the call for restructuring, true federalism and resource control is the only way out for peace, justice and equity to reign in this country and the guarantee for our continuous commitment to the Nigerian project.
“This scenario has also reignited our search and pursuit for self-determination and self-actualization in a clime that has brutally raped our sensitivities and rights to peaceful and prosperous existence.
“The perpetrators of these obnoxious policies and laws that infringe on our fundamental human and environmental rights should equally be reminded of the dire consequences and find themselves to be blamed in the event of any eventuality,” he added.