PIB: Ikwerre People Blasts Their NASS Members, Reject Bill

Ikwere people of Rivers states under the auspices of Ikwerre People’s Congress, IPC, has rejected the new Petroleum Industrial Bill passed by the National Assembly.

The group also took a swipe on their representatives at the Assembly for supporting the “injustice without staging a walkout” describing them “as a disgrace and enemies of our region.”

On July 1st, both Chambers of the National Assembly passed the Bill with the Red chamber allocating a paltry 3% and the Green Chambers 5% respectively to the host communities.

IPC in a press statement signed by Livingstone Wechie, Chairman; Comrade Innocent Okocha, Vice Chairman; Stanley Worgu, General Secretary and Bright Chukwuma, Director, IPC Diaspora, they described the new provision as: “The most ridiculous and insulting allocation of three percent proceeds to host Communities truly defines the unjust and repressive posture of the federal government which continues to undermine minority rights in this Country.”

The complete statement reads:

“Ikwerre People’s Congress IPC Worldwide outrightly rejects the purported Petroleum Industry Bill PIB passed by the National Assembly because it typifies nothing worthy of celebration. Ikwerre and other ethnic Nationalities in the Niger Delta are the only producers of Oil and Gas in Nigeria from where the Nigerian state survives economically and so have the authority to speak for themselves.

“The said PIB as structured is no doubt in furtherance to the continuous asset stripping of our natural resources as a people and as a region by the Nigerian government which has continued to occupy and possess our resources through coercive means and illegitimate instruments without our voluntary consent. IPC views the National Assembly members of the Niger Delta extraction who allowed themselves to partake in this injustice without staging a walkout as a disgrace and enemies of our region.

“The most ridiculous and insulting allocation of three percent proceeds to host Communities truly defines the unjust and repressive posture of the federal government which continues to undermine minority rights in this Country. As long as Nigeria continues to unitarily sequester our assets without allowing the ancestral owners of land and natural resources to determine their economic future as of right in the principle of federalism as is applicable all over the world, the economic injustice meted on our people will naturally continue to breed instability.

“It is unfortunate that the value of Oil and Gas for host Communities in the eyes of government is rated at 3% while the federal government who have no legitimate rights ab initio over the resources will keep the rest hidden under veiled technical arrangements. This is more horrendous given the fact that the said host communities have been left to their fate to grapple with environmental degradation that has denied them livelihood. The danger ahead is that as the world transits into alternative energy, Niger Delta, stripped of livelihood stands as the biggest loser because its environment is criminally destroyed with the federal government looking the other way.

“IPC maintains that the the federal government has capacity to do the needful in the interest of justice. Although the federal government and certain misguided and extremist Northern agents have wistfully laid claim to Niger Delta Oil and Gas assets, we state that our irreducible minimum demand in agreement with all ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta is a hundred percent ownership rights of our lands, Seas, Oil and Gas assets in the interest of justice as we can no longer continue to bear the forced burden of the survival of Nigeria.”