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Over the last two years the National Assembly made attempts to
enact laws that would bring about needed changes in the oil and gas sector and
in the overall socio-economic environment. Somehow, both the Senate and the
House of Representatives slipped into deep sleep over the salient issues.

The first bill that comes to mind is the highly talked about
Petroleum Industries Bill (PIB). Oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria
have generally been happy to continue business as usual, riding on the tracks
set by various military dictators who held sway over the powers of state in the
past. The PIB, with all its imperfections, attempts to bring some level of
sanity into the sector and allows for some form of integration as well as
enabling the nation to derive more financial and socio-economic benefits from
the sector.

Expectedly, the oil companies have fought the bill. They have
openly said that they would not accept any law that is not favourable to them
and have often twisted statistics to suggest that Nigeria is attempting to
drive them into bankruptcy if the bill is passed into law without being watered
down.

Similarly, the government seems to be bending back and doing the
donkey work to ensure that the oil companies are happy. Having been in bed
together for so long, the necessary social distance needed for serious
negotiations between the government and the companies is difficult to create
and so they continue with their pillow talk away from public view.

While the oil companies kick and scream over who gets to pocket
how much money, the issues that really concern the local communities living in
the oil fields were largely overlooked by the PIB. For example, there are no
concerns about the impacts of the sector’s activities on the environment.
Neither did the first draft make any allowance for community consultations and
participation.

This writer fully appreciates the difficulties that governments
have when it comes to communities. I often recall a conversation I had with a
Mines and Energy minister of another country over serious agitations from
communities who feared that mining activities in their communities would
destroy their livelihood. They demanded a consultation with the government and
the government would not agree to hold one because, according to the minister,
the national constitution did not say anything about popular consultations and
as such the government could not say what it meant, how it should be held, and
who would pay for it.

Even when the community folks were ready to hold the
consultation at no cost to government and insisted that this was a right under
the International Labour Organisation’s covenant, the government would not
budge. The only promise our meeting left with was that the government would not
proceed with the mining projects until a suitable agreement was reached with
the affected people.

Consequently, violent conflicts deepened in the area and it does
seem that this is the sort of dialogue that some governments would prefer to
have. Conflicts in Nigeria have similar roots.

The PIB has the possibility of making environmental and
community concerns central in the sector. The environment has been trashed for
long enough and there is need for a cease-fire now. And if we like, we can
extend an amnesty to the oil companies too.

Sleepy chambers

The Gas Flares Prohibition Bill of 2008 is another critical bill
that has been sleeping in the chambers of the House of Representatives. The
Senate passed the bill and going by it, gas flaring would have been outlawed
again by the end of 2010. Gas flaring has been illegal in Nigeria since 1984
and a High Court sitting in Benin City affirmed in November 2005 that the
activity is indeed illegal and a flagrant abuse of human rights.

Shell informed the world about the origins of gas flaring in
Nigeria in a May 2010 document on their website. “When The Shell Development
Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) built many of its first production facilities
in the 1950s, there was little demand or market for gas in many parts of the
world, including Nigeria. So, Associated Gas (AG) was usually burned off safely
– a process called flaring. This remained accepted industry practice as SPDC
established a major oil operation across the Niger Delta.”

As you can see, this dastardly act goes back five decades! Gas
flaring may have been a practice accepted by Shell and their co-travelers in
the pursuit of ecocide, we can loudly say that the practice was never
celebrated by the suffering people of the oil region. Neither will communities
elsewhere in Nigeria accept it if oil is found in their territories.

The gas flare prohibition law for the first time proposes
sanctions that should deter the companies from engaging in the destructive
activity. Apart from prison terms proposed, offenders would pay fines
equivalent to market value of the flared gas. The bill also proposes that no
company should be given any lease for oil and gas exploitation without an
accepted gas utilisation plan.

Now the slumber of the House of Representatives over this matter
has allowed the 2010 deadline proposed by the bill to slip by. Added to dinner
party deadlines set and ignored by past governments, this one has been swept
under the carpet and no future deadline is even hoisted to keep hope alive.

Gas flaring is an abuse that cannot be tolerated for any reason.
We have allowed it for long enough. We do not need new deadlines. And the farce
of presenting projects with regard to existing gas flares for carbon credit
under the United Nations Framework Convention must be halted.

The slippery terrain of the oil sector has dulled the outgoing
NASS into sleep and given room for continued abuse and pillage. If
electioneering will allow governance to proceed, it is not too late in the day
for the legislators to rouse from slumber and do the right thing.