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Petroleum Bill: Nigeria Bar Association Threatens to Sue FG

....Says Retention of Lukman Confirms Doomsday Prediction

Omafume Amurun, Warri

The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Warri Branch, has threatened to drag the federal government to court if the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was not withdrawn and redrafted. They also endorsed the sacking of the current Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman.

The NBA in a press statement signed by its Chairman, Chief A.O. Giwa and Secretary, Mr. A.A. Bekederemo, made available to Niger Delta STANDARD in Warri, warned also that retention of the likes of Dr Lukman could move Nigeria dangerously towards the doomsday prophecy that Nigeria ranked next to Somalia in the list of 177 failing states.

They condemned the current dichotomy between hydro carbons and solid minerals which they described as unfair, unconstitutional and unwarranted. "Whereas the solid minerals regime makes any mining rights granted by the government subject to prior or subsequent agreement on terms with host or land owning communities or individuals as in the Texas Theory of ownership of minerals", they stated stressing that the opposite was the case with hydro carbons. The lawyers maintained that as long as Nigeria subscribed to the United Nation charter, the new world economic order redefined sovereignty to include the right to a determination of the economic of a people.

The NBA pointed out that although Nigeria accepted this resolution passed many years ago, it never lived up to it in relation to the exploitation of its hydro carbons simply because the exploitation of hydro carbons was done in the country's south-south ethnic minorities geo-political zone. They noted that a version of the present Petroleum Industry Bill conceded 20 per cent of royalties to producing states and five per cent to host communities while another dispense with this concession adding both were still short of the constitutional requirement of equality of component parts of the federation or the United Nations resolution on the new world economic order. "Clearly an amnesty that is presented without due regard to the position expressed by the Governors of the South-South geopolitical zone with full support of our constituency herein reiterated, will be pyrrhic and ill advisable to pursue further" they said.

While supporting the location of the headquarters of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund in Abuja, the NBA condemned the location of an Institute for Advanced Petroleum Training in Kaduna. "It is common knowledge that Kaduna is already laden with policy development institutions such as the Defence Academy which is now a degree awarding institution which is not replicated in any where in Southern part of Nigeria, the Nigeria Military School and the Aviation College all in Kaduna state which were not replicated in any Southern part of Nigeria.

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