From indications, the target of the National Assembly to pass the oldest draft legislation lurking in the National Assembly, the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), this April, may not be realised due to the recent Easter Break.

It is now very obvious that the long-awaited bill has had to suffer another setback, and something will have to be done urgently to re-focus the bill to meet the expectation of stakeholders, especially the oil -bearing communities.

While we expect wise counsel to prevail on this matter, we still enjoin the 9th National Assembly led by Senator Ahmad Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, to fix their eyes on the final outcome of the legislative processes in order to scale the hurdles that will enable stakeholders in the industry to heave a sigh of relief this time around.

Though we commend the lawmakers, particularly their leadership for coming up with bold initiatives to overcome the drawbacks that kept the PIB in the National Assembly shelve for close to two decades, we equally feel that they should invest more energy into the realisation of the final outcome to make the citizens happier.

Approve not less than 10 percent for host communities in PIB – Wike

Already, the bill has been read for the first and second time in both chambers of the legislature and referred to their respective ad hoc committees on PIB in the National Assembly.

Also, at the committees’ level, the lawmakers have held public hearings, conducted facility tours and organised a number of retreats where relevant stakeholders were given the opportunity to look at the bill at very close quarters.

But it should also be noted that, in the National Assembly, everything is in top gear and Nigerians and key players in the industry are concerned about the PIB.

This has led to the promise of the leadership of the National Assembly that the bill would be passed at a record time, possibly this month.

In similar vein, the proviso given by the National Assembly leadership that it would not pass the PIB at the expense of the interest of Nigerians cannot be faulted at all.

However, despite the fact that the lawmakers are eager to pass the bill, all necessary steps and efforts must be made to ensure that it meets the yearnings of a larger segment of stakeholders, and their interests should not be sacrificed on the altar of a shoddy job.

This fresh dimension that was brought to bear on the speedy passage of the PIB came to be when a member of the House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Bauchi Iyali, fielded questions from the press recently.

Iyali said that NASS would make sure it carried out a thorough job so that, at the end of the day, Nigeria would have a piece of legislation that would accommodate a number of interests and be easy for implementation in the country because it is not just passing the bill that is at stake, but having something that is acceptable to a number of stakeholders in the industry. ThisNigeria welcomes this.

We, therefore, pray that in the next few weeks or months, the PIB should be ready and presented to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent, and the presidency should embrace acceptable ways of dealing with any reservations about the bill.

In this wise, we call on the National Assembly to dispassionately look at certain grievances in the land, especially in the oil-producing communities, for instance, the host community aspect of the bill which affects a whole range of issues.

While we expect that the bill will be looked into critically and the concerns of the host communities aligned with the general principles of the bill, let the greater interest of Nigeria guide the actions of the lawmakers.

Finally, it is time to re-focus on the resources and interventions by the government at the centre, and at the state levels going into the Niger Delta to meet the needs of host communities.