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The Senate on Tuesday deferred passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) by one week, following its failure to form a quorum.

Only 23 senators –
10 short of required minimum – attended Tuesday’s sitting presided over
by the deputy Senate president, Ike Ekwerenmadu.

The PIB was, however, not also properly signed by all four committees that participated in reviewing it.

Chairman of the
Senate joint committee on the draft law, Lee Maeba, presented the
report of the committee which recommended its passage without the
signature of the Senate committee on gas, headed by Osita Izunaso.

Mr. Maeba said his
committee submitted the edited copy of the bill last December, but it
has been held back by the refusal of some participating committees to
sign.

“We asked Senator
Osita to bring the signatures, since December; he continued saying he
will bring it, but we have not seen it,” Mr. Maeba said.

Though the Senate
passed three other bills without quorum, Mr. Ekweremadu ruled that the
bill be shelved till Tuesday 15 March, 2010, to allow for the inclusion
of signatures of the members of the Senate committee on gas.

He also cited poor attendance and lack of update on the provisions of the bill as reasons for the postponement of the passage.

The bill, which was
introduced into both chambers of the assembly in December 2008, has
suffered series of delays due to disagreements on its provisions by
various parties.

Host communities,
indigenous oil companies, and federal lawmakers from the oil producing
Niger Delta had, during the public hearing on the bill, insisted they
will not support it unless some sections were amended to favour the
communities.

Other industry relevant groups have also raised some serious concerns over the bill through its period of legislation.

It is, however, not clear if the issues raised by the various interest groups were addressed in the bill.

Yesterday, some
members of the House of Representatives accused the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of frustrating their efforts on PIB by
tendering different versions of the bill and yet proposing another
amendment.

Chairman of the
House committee on gas resources, Igo Aguma, said the NNPC is seeking
to create the impression that the bill is unduly delayed at the
National Assembly while it was working to undermine the work of the
lawmakers.

“Charlatans”

The deputy Senate
president said his colleagues will not be “blackmailed” into passing
the bill. He described those who had protested the delay in passing the
bill to the National Assembly the previous day as “charlatans.”

The coordinator of
the protesters, David Ugolor, while reacting to the comments of the
deputy Senate President, however, said it was “shameless and
disgraceful for a legislator to describe peaceful protesters as
charlatans.”

“For the Deputy
Senate President to call civil society groups that came here yesterday
(Monday) to protest without any violence as charlatans is very
disgraceful. Do you know that to access these Senators is very
difficult? We resist any effort to frustrate the passage of the bill
because its passage will benefit Nigerians,” Mr. Ugolor said.

The report presented by Mr. Maeba listed the benefits of PIB to the Nigerian economy and the petroleum industry.

These include: “A strong and virile regulatory framework for overall
efficiency of the petroleum industry; maximisation of the benefits of
exploitation of Nigerian petroleum resources through increase in
government revenue; overcoming government’s cash call problems; and
promotion of availability of gas for electricity production.”