The Executive Chairman of Oilserv Limited, an indigenous oil service group, Chief Emeka Okwuosa, has accused the legislators of failing in their responsibilities to Nigerians and the country by deliberately refusing to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, which is meant to boost the fortunes of Nigeria’s petroleum economy. Okwuosa, who spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the just concluded Offshore Technology Conference, OTC 2015, in Houston Texas, spoke against the backdrop of the fact that the PIB has remained at the National Assembly for over a decade without being passed into law.

He noted that so far attention has been focused on the executive arm of government for the failure of not passing the bill, and insisted that the blame is more on the lawmakers than any other arm. According to him, “When you talk about government people tend to concentrate more on the executive alone; it’s not just the executive, the legislature also have a huge duty, and I can tell today that so far the previous parliaments have failed us in not addressing PIB adequately.”

He noted that the executive alone cannot initiate the bill, pass it and also execute it, as the issue of governance is a chain, adding, “We need government in totality to come in and understand that oil and gas is the bedrock of our economy and we should not play with it. “Oil is a natural resource that ought to benefit all Nigerians in one way or another, so the value has to trickle in a way that makes sense and is sustainable”

Expectations from Buhari

Against this backdrop, he urged the incoming administration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, to take charge and manage the situation, and  to appreciate the fact that the governing law for petroleum – exploration and production is outdated and is not addressing the current challenges. He said: “There is a need to have a change – call it PIB or call it whatever you want to call it; it is overdue, and there is indeed a need to look at the best practice in the industry as far as international standards are concerned.

“The passage of PIB will be a welcome development for the industry. But make no mistakes that whatever is passed as the PIB, make sure it is fit for purpose and addresses the requirements that we need in Nigeria as a country, of investors, of communities and every impacted systems or entities; it has to be well looked into so that we don’t have a law that will send us backwards.”

Balkanising the PIB

With regard to the current clamour that the PIB should be broken down into segments to enable the legislators pass the agreeable sections of the bill, while the contentious portions should be further reviewed until resolutions are reached Okwuosa argued that the issue is not about the structure, but the content of the bill. He said: “The PIB the way it is structured today is not a matter of whether it is one law or that it is too big and should be broken into 20; what is important is its content. The content should address technical issues, legal issues and other issues that concerns oil and gas industry.

“…So what is important is adequate and proper management of the oil and gas industry and that is what is key. And that means we have to be able to manage it in a way that will look at all the variables and all possible conditions and be able to address that.” Against this backdrop, he expressed the hope that the Buhari’s administration will do a lot better, saying: “We can say incoming government, but it is still a government just like the outgoing one.

What we expect to see is for the government to address the basic issues that align in the oil and gas industry, especially the things that are holding the industry from growing the way it should grow. “We’ve mentioned the PIB, four years ago I raised this issue, subsequent years i also raised the issue, but we are still here, nothing has happened.”

Despite assurances from the legislators that the PIB will be passed into law under the current legislative session, majority of Nigerians do not believe that this will happen, as similar promises had been made in the past under previous legislative sessions, but never fulfilled.