Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade, has called on the National Assembly to handle issues in the Bill with circumspection, to avoid contentions that could trail its passage into law.
The governor said at the Governor’s Lodge in Calabar, the state capital while receiving Joint Committee on Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), who were touring the country for stakeholders’ inputs.
The governor lamented that the focus of the bill centers more on oil-bearing communities, with scant regard to communities that suffer the direct impact of exploration activities.
“While we make haste, we must show caution as the people of Cross River State have a very strong feeling that the PIB must address their unique concern, the PIB focuses so much on producing communities without emphasizing on the adversely impacted communities.
“We are the most impacted because all the oils within the Akpami fields find their way into Cross River State.
“Right here where you sit, directly behind my house here, is the Calabar River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean directly into the Akpami wells. One of those wells is just 36 kilometers from here. When there is a spill, where does it go to? It comes here,” Ayade said.
He added that the people of Cross River State have been treated unfairly as a state with a population of 4.2 million people gets a little over a billion naira while another state with about the same demography gets N14billion to N16 billion monthly.
He added that in spite of the haste with which the committee wants to drive the PIB, there is a need to exercise ecclesiastical caution to ensure that the PIB bill does not throw up other developments that will bring about other contentions and continuous struggle.
