Honourable Tim Owhefere is the Chief Whip of the Delta State House of Assembly representing the Isoko North constituency. Owhefere who is also a knight of St. Christopher bared his mind on the recent passage of a bill in the house that sentences kidnappers to death if found guilty and the ten years old democracy […]

THE turnout at the beginning of the three-day public hearing on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) last Monday was unprecedented in the ten year history of the present National Assembly. It was perhaps reflective of the serious dominance of oil in the nation’s economy that the Senate hearing was thronged by virtually all stakeholders to the Nigerian project.

At a Stakeholders’ Forum, July 20, organized by the Delta State Government in Asaba to sensitize the people on the National Gas Master Plan, the participants and representatives of host communities were agitated by the issue of ownership and what the host communities and indigenes stand to gain by allowing the Federal Government and multinational companies to exploit gas in the state.

I think the bill is a little bit insensitive to the yearnings of the people of the Niger Delta and the oil producing communities. One important instance of this is that all over the world, royalty is an amount paid to the owners of the land.

Former governor of the state, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who was represented at the meeting by an aide, Professor Tunde Samuel, said that the ultimatum, apart “from being totally unwarranted and an abuse of the constitution, in essence seeks to punish the people of Lagos State for being democratic.”