INC rejects re-introduced Water Resources Bill, says it is ethnic expansionist agenda
By Aluta News
July 21, 2022
The Ijaw National Congress (INC), has rejected the reintroduced Water Resources Bill before the National Assembly, describing it as an ethnic expansionist agenda.
In a statement signed by its President, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, the INC said it had received a copy of the Re-Introduced National Water Resources Bill, 2022 “which on its face value seeks to inaugurate an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) System based on Item 64 of the Exclusive Legislative List.’’
“The INC having considered and deliberated on its legal and socio-cultural implications, especially as it relates to its adverse impact and effect on Nigerians generally, and on the people of the Ijaw nation in particular, wishes to state as follows:
“That the Bill inter alia, seeks to commercialise the utilisation of water resources via a licensing regime and collapses previous Legislation relating to water resources into a single instrument.
“The re-Introduction of this bill in the twilight days of the Buhari-led administration; and at such a critical time in the history of Nigeria, with the various recurrent challenges, really calls for circumspect on the part of well-meaning Nigerians, and indeed the Ijaw nation’
`In the consideration of the bill, which appears to be targeted at controlling the coastal environment of the Ijaw nation,
that it is a surreptitious attempt by the Federal Government to usurp, erode and indeed whittle down the powers of the state governors by the Institutions to be established.’’
The INC further alleged that such institutions were composed of majorly, persons from the North, who could exploit the provisions of the bill to the advantage of their kinsmen, the Fulani herdsmen, to infiltrate the coastal environment without any inhibition or control,
It said the bill was being promoted under the guise of ”public interest and citizens’ equal right of access to water ways, to the detriment, prejudice and harm of the indigenous customary and ancestral owners and users of the water ways such as the Ijaw people.
“The express inclusion of land, as part of the resources to be managed by the institutions established under the bill, is a subtle but deliberate usurpation of the powers of a state governor, in violation of the provisions of the Land Use Act of 1979, which entrusts all lands within a state on the governor for the benefit of the citizens.
“The land resources, river basins and adjacent marine and coastal environment contained in the bill, describe in totality lands and homesteads of the Ijaw people and other ethnic nations situated along the coasts of such rivers, and they will be adversely affected by bringing their homesteads under the control of forces which may seek to carry out an ethnic expansionist agenda.
“If the bill is passed in its present form, lands contiguous to the rivers, and water sources vested in the Federal Government will be held by these Institutions.
“Due to previous experiences, it is expected and entirely probable that persons of a certain hegemonic ethnic grouping with pastoral background may occupy the said lands and turn them into settlements, further exacerbating the already fragile security situation that has been foisted upon the nation by some members of the said ethnic grouping.
“Accordingly, the INC hereby unequivocally rejects this sinister bill, which is aimed at further enslaving the Ijaw people, and indeed the people of the Niger Delta Region, who have suffered, and are still suffering severe exclusion, deprivation, devastating health conditions, underdevelopment, ravaged ecosystem and a general state of socio-political discontent with the forced union called Nigeria,’ the INC claimed.
The congress therefore, urged the Federal House of Representatives, and the National Assembly (NASS), to halt the legislative process on the bill and “throw same overboard for being obnoxious, unjust, oppressive and unconstitutional’’.
It further called on the NASS to use the opportunity to prove to Nigerians that it was not another arm of the executive, but an institution that was constitutionally co-equalled, autonomous and empowered to interrogate and invoke the doctrines of justice, equity, checks and balances, as well as fairness to all Nigerians.
“The Ijaw Nation will resist, using all available legal machineries, any attempt to foist this satanic bill on the people of the Ijaw ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta Region under any guise.
“Those who take our hospitality, magnanimity of heart and peaceful disposition for granted, do so at their own peril.
“We call on all Nigerians, and particularly coastal dwellers in the South South, South West, South East, Middle Belt and elsewhere, to be united in their rejection of the Re-introduced National Water Resources Bill.
“For if allowed to transit into law, will definitely impact unimaginable damage on our individual and collective existence, and of course as recipe for anarchy and national disintegration,’’ the INC declared.
The INC is the umbrella socio-cultural, politically non-partisan organisation of the Ijaw ethnic nationality.