TheCable

Edwin Clark, an Ijaw national leader, says the newly passed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was manipulated by Ahmad Lawan, senate president.

He had described the PIB as “satanic, unjust and embarrassing”.

Speaking on Monday when he received a delegation of the Host Communities of Nigeria Producing Oil and Gas (HOSTCOM) in Abuja, Clark said the “obnoxious and devilish” PIB must not be accepted.

According to him, peace and security may be not be guaranteed in the Niger Delta region if anything less than 10 percent operating expenditure of oil firms is allocated to the trust fund for host communities.

“Very soon, it will come to pass that we are not second class citizens in this country. I discovered that everything was manipulated in the PIB by the president of the senate, Ahmad Lawan,” he claimed.

“We want to be part of the operation. Let us be part of what is going on in our area, which is killing us, our ecosystem, our fish. I have had enough of these insults.

“The federal government must account for who are the owners of oil blocs and who are the marketers. The equity share must be 10% for the host communities, and we will continue to reject it until they make us part of it.”

Clark, who is also the leader of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), explained that the host communities want 10 percent to guarantee businesses, investments, and investors’ safety in the region.

When contacted by TheCable, Ajibola Bashiru, senate spokesman, challenged Clark to provide evidence to back up his claims.

“Let him give specifics of everything that he claimed was manipulated,” Bashiru said.

“The senate cannot reply to the fallacy of hasty generalisation calculated to undermine the important milestone of the passage of the Bill that is long overdue.”