| Amnesty International and other rights bodies Friday slammed Nigeria’s proposed reform to the oil and gas sector, saying it failed to address the key industry’s impact on local communities.
“As presently drafted, the bill fails to address the social and human rights impacts of the oil industry,” Amnesty and about 30 other local and international civil and rights groups said in a joint statement. The statement said that although civil society groups working on the Niger Delta and with communities in the region commend the initiative to review the law, locals should be consulted on its possible impact. “The bill as presently drafted does not require (oil) licensees to conduct assessments on the social and human rights impact of their operations as part of the licensing process. This is a shortcoming that ought to be addressed,” the statement said. The bill, currently being debated, should take into consideration an assessment of the potential impacts on health, access to clean water and livelihoods, the statement said. It should also specify fair and adequate compensation for oil-bearing communities by oil licensees as well as setting sanctions for failure to pay compensation for environmental damage. International oil majors this week also condemned the bill and senators from six Nigerian oil-producing states on Wednesday rejected it. The senators’ spokesman, Victor Ndoma-Egba, said the proposed law “neither addresses the fundamental issues of the degraded environment of the region nor the participation of its people in their God-given endowments.” Niger Delta’s main armed militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), says it is fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenues for the impoverished communities in the region. |
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