BY EMMA UJAH

Less than three months to the end of the present administration, it has emerged that a powerful cabal in the nation’s oil and gas sector has commenced a  move to stop the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, into law.

As learnt in Abuja, at the weekend, the group is made up of officials of  the international oil companies operating in Nigeria and their collaborators in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as well as the Ministry of Petroleum Resources who have been benefitting from the status quo in the oil and gas industry.

The PIB has passed the second reading in both chambers of the National Assembly and now awaiting the third and final reading before being passed by the federal legislature.

But sources claimed  that the cabal that has been hindering the oil and gas sector reform for many decades in the country have vowed to frustrate the Bill.

Two approaches were said to have been put on the table.  The first option is to “encourage” the federal legislators to delay it until the end of the legislative session, thereby denying President Goodluck Jonathan an opportunity to sign it into law.

The sources said  the second option would be to approach the president himself and insist that he does not sign the bill should the lawmakers refuse to cooperate.

One of  Jonathan’s cabinet members, Sunday Vanguard gathered, has been fully briefed to work on the president.  That cabinet member’s mandate is to work out technical hitches that the president could give to Nigerians as the reason he could not sign the bill, if passed before May 29.  

Many senators and their colleagues at the House of Representatives were said to have been “too vocal” in their avowed determination to pass the bill, a situation  members of the group were said to have considered unhealthy for their plan.

The current move to kill the PIB is the second major attempt at frustrating the legal backing to the much-needed oil and gas sector reform in the country.

The Bureau of Public Enterprises, under the last Director-General, Dr. Christopher Anyanwu, had, in 2009, alerted  Jonathan, then the vice president and chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, NCP, of the unilateral move by the NNPC and the Ministry of Petroleum to amend the bill,  as approved by the Federal Executive Council before it was presented as an Executive Bill.

The memo, according to the petition, contained “fundamental changes to the PIB that were not contained in the policy documents approved by the FEC before it was sent to the National Assembly”.

The petition, which copy was made available to Sunday Vanguard, was entitled, The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) unilateral reversal of FGN policy decisions on private sector participation in the oil and gas sector by the petroleum ministry.

The then BPE boss warned that the NNPC and the ministry wanted to “superintend over the reforms that will affect them, a case of a judge being a witness in his own case” and delist some of the subsidiaries of the NNPC meant for privatization under the reform.

Some of the objectives of the Bill are:

PIB vests Oil and Gas resources in the sovereign State of Nigeria

Management and allocation of petroleum resources will be in accordance with the principles of good governance, transparency, and to promote sustainable development and economic value to Nigeria.

All institutions in the industry including the National Oil Company (NOC) to be guided by the provisions of the NEITI Act of 2007.

Honours international environmental provisions and obligations

Encourages community relations and the development of Nigerian content

Allows unhindered access for entry into and participation of companies in the industry in accordance with the law.

Evolves a transparent, investor-friendly legislation;

Jonathan has promised at several fora outside the country and at home, especially during the on-going presidential campaign rallies, that this government was determined to pass the PIB into law.

A policy dialogue group of non-governmental ogarnisations also  rose from a meeting in Abuja at the  at the weekend with a wake up call on Nigerians to demand urgent work on the bill by both the National Assembly and the Presidency with a view to passing it and signing into law before May 29.