By Emma Amaize

WARRI—OIL communities in Delta State are at  “war”  over a bill by the governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, to the Delta State House of Assembly, to streamline the operations of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC. The bill for a law to provide for the establishment of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Commission, Five Ethnic Nationalities Oil Producing Development Agencies, Five Ethnic Nationalities Producing Areas Investment Corporations and Other Matters Connected Therewith, will go for a second reading today.

However, the national leadership of Host Communities of Nigeria Producing Oil and Gas, HOSTCOM, led by Prince Maikpobi Okareme, is strongly opposed to the passage of the bill, which it described as a move to scrap DESOPADEC. Its position is sharply opposed by the state chapter of HOSTCOM, headed by Hon Benjamin Iwetan, which described Uduaghan’s move as patriotic.

Bill not scrap DESOPADEC—Ogeah

Commissioner for Information in the state, Mr. Chike Ogeah, denied in an interview that Governor Uduaghan was planning to scrap DESOPADEC as insinuated by the national leadership of HOSTCOM, but a lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, asserted, “the governor wants to decentralize the operations of DESOPADEC with the bill, I see it as a selfish bill.”

We support the bill, Delta HOSTCOM

Dismissing the  allegation of selfish motive against the governor, Iwetan said in an April 24 letter to the Speaker, “we have thoroughly studied the 29-page bill and hereby state that it is in consonance with our objectives, hopes and aspirations of the Oil and Gas Producing ethnic nationalities in the state.” He said  the Ika and Aniocha ethnic nationalities should be incorporated into DESOPADEC , its agencies and corporations, as envisioned by the governor  since significant exploration and exploitation of oil and gas have begun in these areas

“We also sue for proper and accurate assessment of oil and gas producing quantities  in these areas. “The above facts adumbrated, we are desirous of expeditious  passage of the bill before the terminal date of the present administration so as to fast-track the development of the communities.”

National HOSTCOM  kicks

But, the national leadership of HOSTCOM, which first raised the alarm over the bill at a meeting in Effurun, Uvwie local government area, maintained that the plan of the state government was to collapse DESOPADEC. National Coordinator, Prince Okareme, told Niger Delta Voice shortly after the meeting that the action reportedly coming from Governor Uduaghan was borne out of ulterior motive against the common interests of DESOPADEC communities.

He  said: “Even the sponsor of the bill knows that it is ill-conceived and so they are being very secretive about it just like they did with the political office holders’ pension bill. The bill has passed first reading and it is not in public domain. “For us, we can pre-empt that it aims at covering the dirty deals of DESOPADEC over the years.

“The new arrangement as contained in the bill takes funds accrued to the agency to reward a bloated board membership leaving peanuts for the core objective of developing the host communities.” He said the body also presumed from the tone of the bill that it was aimed at pre-empting the judgement of the court in the suit by HOSTCOM against the state government in respect of outstanding N230 billion accrued to communities through DESOPADEC in the past eight years of the current administration.

According to him,  ”the funds being appropriated by DESOPADEC as commission belong to the oil producing/impacted communities and not the Delta State Government, hence it cannot be scrapped without their consent. “The present action of the state government could be likened to someone that wants to shave another person’s hair in his absence.”