The foremost socio cultural organisation of the Ibibio ethnic nationality, Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio has urged Governors and National Assembly members from the Niger Delta region and sister coastal states irrespective of political affiliations, to rise against the proposed Water Resources Bill.
In a communique issued at the end of its Central Working Committee meeting held at its international headquarters in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital in South-South Nigeria, the organisation described the proposed Bill as “evil, repressive, a complete misplacement of priorities and an attempt to deprive the people of the Niger Delta region and coastal states resources freely given to them by God and by such action, further impoverish them”.
The organisation stated in the communique that a bill which aims to confer ownership, control and management of surface and underground waters on the Federal Government, like what is obtainable in petroleum resources, was an affront to the sensibilities of its people which must be rejected and fought with all available constitutional means to ensure it died a natural death.
It called on the National Assembly and the Federal Government to resist every temptation by the promoters of the obnoxious bill to exacerbate the already smouldering schism in the country which had brewed mistrust fueled by actions, inactions, policies and lopsided appointments to key positions in favour of a particular section of the country.
The communique further noted that at a time the University system was on strike for months , when insecurity had attained monumental proportions with killings and kidnap for ransom, when the local currency, the Naira, was on a free fall to its lowest level ever in the history of the country, when enterprises were shutting down and foreign investors were leaving the country due to unbearable operational costs and poor economic policies, that what should preoccupy policy makers in the country should be how to channel all energy and resources towards tackling those issues and not to plunge the country into more avoidable crises, with such a contentious bill.
The organisation pointed out that it would mobilise other concerned ethnic nationality groups to resist the bill which it suspects has sinister motives and is meant to serve sectional interests.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
