You’re all being hasty

Governors of the 36 states of the federation have complained over the Petroleum Industry Act that President Muhammadu signed earlier this August. The National Assembly passed the bill in July. Reacting to the PIA, they said Monday that they were not comfortable with some of the provisions and set up a committee to suggest amendments.

Nigerian Governors Forum’s chairman and Ekiti State’s governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had last Thursday expressed concerns over the 30 per cent allocation for frontier exploration and three per cent for host communities in the PIA. He said both provisions, if implemented, would deplete the Federation Account, adding, “We worry more about the entire federation and not about selected parts of the federation. For us as governors, that is a distinction without a difference. We are talking about depletion of the Federation Account, whether it is three percent or 30 percent.”

The six-man committee the governors have set up is chaired by Delta State Commissioner for Finance, Fidelis Tilije. Benue State’s Commissioner of Finance, Mr. David Olofu is chairman of Forum of State Commissioners of Finance. He said Monday that the committee would submit proposed amendments to the Act to the steering committee on the PIA set up by President Buhari.

He said the forum agreed that there were grey areas in the PIA which did not take into consideration the interest of the states. According to him, the committee would make recommendations which would be submitted to the implementation committee for possible amendment of the Act. “The law is to regulate the system. I like to say that the law is not perfect but it is a good starting point.

“We have observed certain provisions and lack of provisions for the sub-national sector in the law and because of the observation, we tackled the matter at the FAAC, which was chaired by the minister in a representative capacity and we have been assured that the concerns would be taken on board. And based on the timeline of 12 months provided, the implementation committee should be able to work out an amendment to the Act.”

Let us acknowledge, at the onset, that the governors are right to complain. They are major stakeholders in the Nigeria Project. The fortunes of their states are tied to the performance of the PIA. They fear that the federation account from which they draw statutory allocations would be depleted – depleted by financial allocations to oil host communities in the PIA. In this sense, we find the governors’ complaint to be selfish and therefore, condemnable. Their selfishness is the only reason why they are rejecting a law enacted by elected representatives of Nigerians and assented to by an elected President.