For the PIB, horse trading begins

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  Africcon; Nigerian Talk Report: For the PIB, horse trading begins
  
  Africcon Media – News
  
  From: Africcon Media – Nigeria
  
  Oluwole Josiah examines the politics behind the introduction of a bill seeking to establish the National Frontier Basin Exploration Agency
  
  The House of Representatives has gone much farther ahead. A zonal public hearing has been slated and it would seek to address the different issues in the Petroleum Industry Bill. The Senate is yet to take further steps besides constituting a joint committee on the consideration of the PIB. Debates for second reading at both chambers of the National Assembly expectedly generated substantial seismic reactions. The consensus of enacting the petroleum industry law has been settled. The controversy is basically the sharing of the resources accruing from the exploration of Nigeria’s oil and gas.
  
  It will be noted that during the debates, legislators rarely talked about taxes and royalties; gas exploration and utilisation; investments in the oil sector and the review of oil exploitation licenses. The discussions generally avoided the technical and legal issues in the bill and concentrated more on the politics. The crux of the debate reverberated around the perception of legislators about how certain provisions of the PIB affected their sections of the country.
  
  These contentions raged on just before the lawmakers went on break. Now that they have returned to business, a resumption of the hostilities is expected, however, on a different level. As both chambers warm up for comprehensive public hearings, presentations are likely to take the configuration of the bill’s second reading. What will be interesting will be how lawmakers will deploy strategies to promote their interest not too far away from what they canvassed on the floor.
  
  The politics is chiefly about North and South. There are no middle grounds. It is a struggle between northern senators and southern senators. This is playing out in the different high powered meetings being held by the two groups.
  
  It was learnt that a meeting of southern senators held last Wednesday, was to fine tune strategies to win the support of more senators to support the bill as presented. This is because there were fears that while some northern senators were soft on the bill during the debates; their less contentious stance is suggesting that they may have been bought over by their southern counterparts. This, political observers contend may put them under pressure to try to prove to contrary by becoming less friendly to the bill. Although the leadership of the Southern Senators Forum is yet to officially speak on the details of Wednesday’s crucial meeting, indications are that the PIB and how to get it to sail through the stormy sessions, was the singular agenda.
  
  Northern senators, on the other hand, have been consistent as to what they desire as far as the PIB is concerned. Senator Ahmed Lawan, who had been outspoken on this demand, stated clearly that the north was not against the PIB. He said the PIB is not only a legislative piece, but also political and economic. He said, “Every Nigerian has an interest in it and that is why it appeared so controversial and everybody was talking about it.” He argued that given that senators represented different sections of the country, it was necessary for lawmakers to canvass views that met the expectations of their senatorial districts and took their interests into account.
  
  According to Lawan, the bill is not pan-Nigerian enough. He argued that it apparently has very narrow interests and as such, the bill would need to be reworked to meet the aspirations of all Nigerians.
  
  He said, “I have interest in the aspect where the funding for the Petroleum Equalisation Fund will cease to exist. In the judgment of the minister, it is not necessary, but I think that so long as petroleum products will have to be taken across the country there would be need for some funding to make the product fairly available and at affordable rate. So we have disagreement with that and we did not emphasise it, but during the public hearing and other legislative forum that will ensue after the second reading, definitely that area will be touched.
  
  “There are so many other areas, but what the debate focused on was essentially areas where people feel very strongly about. Other areas are important but essentially I just believe that at the end of the day we are supposed to have an oil industry that works for all us. I believe that those who worked on the bill before it came into the National Assembly had the interest of Nigeria, but I think somehow, they did so many things and may be they did not take into cognizance, certain interest. I am not under any assumption someone definitely wanted to shortchange the people. I will not accept any provision that will shortchange the people I represent.”
  
  One of the issues raised by northern senators was the placement of the National Frontier Exploration services inside a Directorate to be created by the PIB, and they held that it was a demonstration of government’s lack of commitment to exploring the several basins in the northern part of the country for crude oil.
  
  That objection is snowballing into something concrete as a bill showed up on the floor of the Senate during the week, specifically aimed at removing the frontier services from the PIB and establishing it by an Act of the National Assembly, an agency for prospecting for crude oil in the northern part of the country.
  
  The bill is titled ‘A Bill for Act to Provide for the Establishment of the National Frontier Basin Exploration Agency to Execute, Promote and Oversee Exploration Activities in the Inland Sedimentary Basins and for Other Related Matters’. Its long title clearly explains the  objectives and functions which had been the longing of many northern lawmakers as expressed in their contributions during the debates.
  
  Section 2(1) of the bills spells out its objectives thus: “The objective of the agency shall be: (a) to promote efficient, sustainable exploration of hydrocarbons in the frontier basins of Nigeria; (b) evaluate all unassigned concessions in Nigeria and (c) undertake activities stimulate exploration interest of local and international oil companies towards increasing Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves.”
  
  The agency is expected to have a non-executive chairman heading the board and a Director General and the Directors of Service. The President is expected to make the appointments.
  
  This bill has been considered as a major tool for compromise on getting the needed support for the Petroleum Industry Bill. The calculation is that if the agency comes on stream and a genuine search for oil in the basins comes to fruition, the current tensions over oil revenue would not arise. It is not clear if northern lawmakers are falling for this talisman. It is believed that the agency would address the fears of the north, given that southern communities are making more demands from oil revenues which form a greater part of contributions to the federation account.
  
  Sponsor of the bill, Senator Smart Adeyemi, said it would ensure that the proposed agency would work to guarantee different sources of crude oil from the different parts of the country. According to him, with oil production in the north, the attendant economic activities would check the high level of poverty in the region.
  
  He said, “If oil could be found in Niger and Ghana, it is possible that we can discover oil in the north. We cannot continue to have one region contributing to the national coffers, while others do not. But if the different parts are contributing, then there would be equity and general sense of belonging.”
  
  But Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, who represents Oyo South Senatorial District, was forthright about his opinion on the PIB. He said in spite of the heightened politics, the debates on the bill at the different levels were unlikely to be different from what was experienced during the second reading. He argued that the South-South lobbying for 10 per cent of profit for host communities and the north’s demand for the National Frontier Exploration Agency, it is most likely that the debates would move away from the regional setting to specific needs of constituencies.
  
  There are no doubts anymore that the 7th National Assembly is serious about getting the bill enacted irrespective of the opposition. What is clear is that it would certainly witness a comprehensive legislative treatment such that some crucial aspects will be touched. Leader of the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, underscored the renewed commitment of the Senate in getting the bill passed as quickly as possible. He said the PIB remained on the front burners of Senate legislative activities during the period. While politics may not be avoided in the matters highly charged with sentiments and sectional considerations, over politicizing the bill could be counterproductive and certainly, any threats to the survival of the PIB is not in the interest of Nigeria’s oil sector.