Clark rubbishes PIB, calls it unjust, embarrassing

“The provision that allocated a huge 30% of profits for further frontier oil exploration in the North was a source of concern, especially in a fast changing world of investment shifts away from fossil oil”

The newly passed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has drawn the ire of prominent ljaw and the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Clark, who described it as a satanic, unjust, embarrassing piece of legislation.

The bill which is ready for harmonization of the chambers of the National Assembly has dashed the hope of the people of the Niger Delta, Clark declared.

Clark, who is also the leader of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), the provision that allocated a huge 30% of profits for further frontier oil exploration in the North was a source of concern, especially in a fast changing world of investment shifts away from fossil oil.

PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Ken Robinson, who addressed a press conference in Abuja on behalf of Clark, said the region has had enough of the colonial oppression and will be resisting it.

He said the PIB did not reflect the decade-long clamour of the people of region for equity, fairness and justice.

Persecondnews recalls that the National Assembly had last week passed the PIB, after about 13 years of legislative inertia.

The bill which was first sent to the National Assembly in 2008 by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, provides some far-reaching reforms in the nation’s oil and gas industry sector.