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By Emman Ovuakporie
The Petroleum Industry Bill, otherwise known as the PIB has once again mounted the centre stage in the Nigerian legislative parlance.
TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) in this analysis will x-ray the renewed vigour by the National Assembly to pass the oldest piece of legislation that saw four Nigerian president’s after it started its sojourn in year 2000.
Both leaders of the National Assembly, Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan and Rep Femi Gbajabiamila had vowed immediately the ninth Assembly was inaugurated in June 2019 that PIB must scale through all hurdles despite vested interests working against it.
The jinx associated with the bill was almost broken by the 8th Assembly as both leaders of NASS then worked day and night to pass it but again like the previous assemblies it died at the twilight of the assembly.
The Senate led then by Senator Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara had gone the extra mile but the PIB failed woefully again.
Despite breaking the Bill into four parts the bill still failed to fly in the ninth Assembly.
The Renewed Vigour:
From inception, Lawan and Gbajabiamila had vowed that PIB must walk and fly in the ninth Assembly.
Without mincing words both legislators who had seen the arrival of the bill and its death in previous assemblies quickly set up adhoc committees to midwife it.
In the House, Hon Tahir Monguno who is the majority whip chairs the committee.
Monguno, a lawyer and a very vast Lawmaker who had chaired several sensitive committees in previous assemblies will need to exhibit his legislative experience to perfect this piece of legislation.
Both chambers had put various structures in place seven months ago to achieve its set goals for PIB
The House of Representatives set up a 30-man committee last August consisting of core professionals and legislators that had proven their mettle.
Apparently sensing the danger of passing the bill in a year preceding the election year which has led to its failure, both chambers decided to start early to walk the PIB this time around.
Barring any hiccups, both chambers seem ready to finally break the jinx associated to the all important law that is capable of galvanising the oil and gas sector into a major global player.
The fear being nursed by experts is whether the vigour will not fizzle out as experienced in the sixth, seventh and eighth Assemblies.
In the sixth Assembly it was killed on the last day of plenary in June 2011. In the seventh Assembly, the House passed it but the Senator David Mark led Senate did not concur.
Despite the vigour and time spent in the eighth Assembly, the presidency had its reservations and the bill died.
Now, both chambers had gone ahead to hold public hearings on PIB, a good sign that there’s a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel.
Loses linked to non-passage of PIB:
*Between 2011-2014 Nigeria lost 1.4bn barrels of crude oil and gas to theft worth $17bn that spanned 51 countries
*Nigeria loses $250m annually to non-passage of Bill
*Nigeria lost 22mb of crude oil between Jan-June in 2019.
These are verfiable facts in the public domain.
If the ninth Assembly can break the jinx, Nigeria via PIB can block the leakages and losses that has continued unabatedly.
The executive bill sent by President Muhamnadu Buhari is broken into three sections namely:
The Petroleum Industry Bill, 2020 which comprises of 3 Chapters focusing on Governance and Institutions (Chapter 1); Administration (Chapter 2) and Host Communities Development (Chapter 3) and 319 sections.
Could this renewed vigour break the jinxed PIB?
Going by the avowed determination of the ninth Assembly, this might just be the last legislative sojourn of PIB in Nigeria.
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