A seeming hidden plan to privatise the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has sparked off a renewed agitation in the country for property rights.
Leading the renewed agitation in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city is Social Development Integrated Centre (Social Action), a civic group. Their Executive Director, Isaac Osuoka, is arguing that for justice and equity in the privatisation of the national oil company, government ”must” also reconsider the ownership of land and natural resources in the country.
”To this end, the Land Use Act and the Petroleum Act, especially the sections that vest ownership of petroleum on the Federal Government should be repealed. The national assets of oil and gas are products of property that naturally belong communities in Nigeria. The right to land and nature should be restored to communities.
It is doubtful if the petroleum industry will know peace if petroleum and related assets taken away from original land owners are handed over to some individuals in the guise of privatisation of the NNPC”, Osuoka said.
The argument of Social Action is that as the country changes the governance and ownership structure of her petroleum assets, ”we must also have a change of the regulatory powers between the federal and state governments. For example, in May 2011 the United States Congressional Research Service published a report that provides an unambiguous description of the legal framework governing petroleum development in US offshore areas.
According to the report, US state laws apply to petroleum development up to three nautical miles off their recognized coasts, and the US federal government regulates development from the boundary of state jurisdiction to at least 200 nautical miles offshore.”
Privatisation of the NNPC is however, engrained in the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) already passed by the National Assembly. But Osuoka says his group is not comfortable with the bill because it has no concern for community issues.
According to him, ”in an apparent departure from the preceding Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua (of 2008), the PIGB does not even pretend to remember or consider oil bearing land and water owning communities.
Sadly, even when ownership of incorporated national oil company is transferred to private individuals and entities, the bill does not make any provision for host communities to have any stake in the ownership of the privatised oil company”.
He said the bill in its original form, and as passed by the lawmakers does not have any part or section dealing with environmental protection. The only mention of environmental issues is a mere reference to the powers of the Commission in Section 6(5) relating to its responsibility for environmental matters in the petroleum industry.
But the 2015 version of the Petroleum Industry Governance and Institutional Framework Bill (PIGIF Bill) tends to have a better conflict prevention provision in this regard when it was made clear that the Federal Ministry of Environment shall have overriding authority in environmental matters.
Section 6(7) of PIGIF Bill provided thus: ”Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law or regulation, no government agency shall exercise any powers and functions in relation to the petroleum industry in conflict with the powers and functions of the Commission except for environment matters where the Federal Ministry of Environment shall have overriding authority.”
For the agitating Social Action, the present bill will take the Niger Delta back to the dark days. ”The PIGB 2017 as passed provides in Section 6(5) as follows: (a) The Nigeria Petroleum Regulatory Commission shall have responsibility over all aspects of health, safety and environmental matters in respect of the petroleum industry. (b)In exercising its functions in subsection (5)(a) of this section, the commission may in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Environment establish a joint committee to facilitate collaboration.”
”If the Commission has full powers, why will it collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Environment? We note that even without such provisions, the Directorate of Petroleum Resources has never been willing to allow the Federal Ministry of Environment to regulate and monitor environmental aspects of the petroleum industry”, the group argued.
Not yet done, they went on, ”instead of seizing the opportunity of a new legislation to correct lapses in our regulation of the environmental aspects of the petroleum sector, the lawmakers chose to deepen the crisis of environmental regulation in the petroleum industry and encourage conflicts.
”The DPR which the commission is to succeed for decades failed in protecting the environment. Because the DPR was handling environmental issues before the advent of the Ministry of Environment, it is finding it difficult to submit to the Federal Ministry of Environment that should prevail over all ministries and departments and agencies of government on matters of the environment.
”With all the awareness now available about environmental issues, it is sad that the PIGB fails to change the environmental management regulations of the oil industry for the better. As it is, the bill has deleted all provisions vesting the Federal Ministry of Environment with regulatory powers on environmental matters in the petroleum industry”.
Section 102 of the bill provides that ”The National Petroleum Company shall not be subject to the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 and the Public Procurement Act 2007.” This is interpreted by Social Action to be the sole focus of the PIG Bill- sale of NNPC after being re-christened via incorporation as National Petroleum Company.
For instance, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007 establishes a Fiscal Responsibility Commission with power under Section 2 to compel any person or government institution to disclose information relating to public revenues and expenditure.
The Act is primarily focused on the nation’s resources and government fiscal policy matters and as such it cannot be made applicable to the National Petroleum Company which the government intends to sell off.
Moreover, those at the corridor of power always prefer oil revenue and related matters to be handled with secrecy. Beyond the intention to sell off the National Petroleum Company, the provision may have been inserted to sustain the status quo of corruption in the Petroleum industry.
One of the tools for making environmental polluters accountable for their actions is litigation. In such cases, the typical claimants are individuals, families and communities where oil and gas multinational corporations operate that may have been affected by the activities.
The expectation is that a law like the PIGB that seeks to create a new governance structure for the petroleum industry should support or expand the opportunity for people to use the legal process as a means of making companies, government institutions and agencies accountable for environmental pollution.
Rather, Sections 31 and 61 of the PIGB as currently drafted places restrictions on the exercise of the enforcement of civil rights as the limitation of action is shorter than the time provided for civil action under the Statutes of Limitation.
The PIGB provides a maximum of twelve months period for suits against the institutions and agencies created under the PIGB, a member of the governing boards or an employee in respect of their functions and powers under the Act to be instituted against them. After twelve months such cause of action would lapse.
Claimants in oil and gas pollution are known to have difficulties with collating evidence, raising money to fund their case and other structural problems with litigation against oil companies.
Therefore, the 12 months limitation of cause of action in this respect is not in the interest of the poor people who are most times the victims of the oil politics in Nigeria. It is suggested that the general laws of limitation be application to the oil industry.