By Mudiaga Affe
The Urhobo Progressive Union has rejected the three percent offered to oil-bearing host communities in the Petroleum Industry Bill which was passed into law by the National Assembly last Thursday.

The UPU, in a statement on Monday by its President-General, Chief Joe Omene, which was made available to our correspondent, said the position was reached having studied and reviewed the PIB as passed by the National Assembly against the background of the alienation of our people from the benefits of the exploitation of oil and gas in our communities for decades.

The statement read in part, “And having considered the exploitation that continues while our region remains the most difficult place to leave and prosper despite the prosperity that oil wealth has brought to other parts of Nigeria, the UPU hereby joins the oil-bearing host communities in rejecting the 3 percent granted to oil-bearing host communities and pipe-line bearing host communities and restate our demand for a minimum of 20 percent.

“We reject the indistinct omnibus definition of host communities and other aspects of the bill. By this detailed statement, UPU urges all sons and daughters of our nation as well as our brother ethnic groups in the entire Niger-Delta region to ignore, dismiss and disregard any comments or statements on behalf of Urhobo.”

The UPU commended lawmakers from Delta State and the entire south for their solidarity in appreciation of the grave injustice done to the region, calling on the entire southern Nigeria lawmakers in the National Assembly to boycott the joint session of both chambers to be convened to pass the piece of legislation.

“If they participate in that joint session to pass it, history shall record it and so shall all those who participated shall be remembered by history.

“In the world of today, finding common ground to bring a divided people together in a country through wholeness incorporating or inclusive diversity is a task of leaders. It cannot be achieved by force that has its limitations as history has shown how Communist command and control over the former Soviet Union through coercion disintegrated eventually.

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“A country cannot be sustained together in peace by suppressing diversity nor make wholeness by enthroning unfair and unjust majority interests over minorities just interest. Every element in the diversity must be respected and each must ask itself sincerely what it contributes to the whole.

“Only those who share in the pains and suffering of others can develop compassion for them and genuinely seek to uplift them. Northern Lawmakers are beneficiaries of the injustice against our people and are unwilling to give up even a little of what they have gained unfairly with its attendant risk of losing everything because no injustice lasts forever.

“We, the Urhobo and our neighbors and brothers across Niger-Delta have contributed and given so much to sustain this country and thus deserve what our people are entitled to, our people will accept nothing less,” it added.