President Muhammadu Buhari, seeking, according to the Presidency, to consolidate some or all the laws on the water resources sector into one body of laws, sent an executive bill to the National Assembly. Since the bill was sent gladiators have been at work charging at the propriety of the move. Dare Odufowokan, Assistant Editor, examines the issue involved with additional reporting by Bolaji Ogundele .
CHECKS by The Nation revealed that the National Assembly have been debating the Regulatory Framework for the Water Resources Sector in Nigeria, sent to it by the presidency. It suddenly became controversial last month when it sharply divided members of the upper chamber. Senators charged at each other menacingly as the bill was being discussed and it took the swift intervention of Senate President Bukola Saraki to prevent what was an imminent exchange of blows.
While some federal lawmakers saw in the bill a document that should be supported and given speedy passage, many others objected firmly, accusing the presidency of overreaching itself with the bill. The controversy over the bill soon spill into the public domain. And in no time, the nation was awash with accusations and counter accusations over the water resources management bill.
Although its first taste of controversy was in May 2018, President Buhari had sent the bill to the legislature in May 2017. Being an Executive bill, it was presented by the House Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, during plenary. He explained that the bill seeks to protect citizens’ right to use water but at the same time, guide against private ownership of water.
“The bill also seeks to establish the National Council on Water Resources, the Nigeria Water Resources Regulatory Commission, River Basin Development Authorities, Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, National Water Resources Institute,” he explained. In his opinion back then, Gbajabiamila said the now controversial bill would lead to an improved management of the country’s water resources, especially through Public, Private, Partnership agreements.
He further said the bill will ensure that the water resources of the nation are protected and managed in a sustainable and equitable manner for the benefit of all persons. “Water is a gift of nature and we must protect it. The National Water Resources Bill is a wholesome law that intends to regulate the use and conservation of the country’s surface water and ground water resources affecting more than one state”, he said.
Following the House Majority Leader’s efforts to explain the need for the bill, and the massive support he received from his colleagues who saw nothing wrong with the law being planned, the water management bill, while it was being debated on the floor of the lower chamber, made good progress and was soon passed for second reading by the members of the House. That, The Nation gathered, was as far back as July 2017.
But the bill failed to sail through in the Senate, following the rejection of the proposal by some of the senators, who expressed worry that it will further deplete the resources to the states and local governments. This therefore resulted in Saraki, directing the Chairman and Vice Chairman of Senate Committee on Water Resources and those of Judiciary and Legal matters, to resolve the areas of controversy within one week and report back to the Senate on the way forward. The report of the Bill titled “National Water Resources Bill, (2018),” as presented by the chairman of the Senate committee on Water Resources, Ubali Shittu (Jigawa North East), said the Bill seeks to provide a regulatory framework for the water resources sector and also seeks to ensure that the nation’s water resources are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled, adding that it will further ensure that the basic water needs of present and future generations of Nigerians are met.
However, the Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, while leading many senators to oppose the bill, argued that all the river waters in the country cut across two or more states, which according to him, implies that the federal government will be in control of all the waters and resources thereof. Senator Adeola Solomon (Lagos West) said the states should be allowed to control the rivers that pass through their territories.
Supporting this, Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East), said a conflict between the Lagos government and the NIWA over who controls the Lagos water ways, is currently before the court, stressing that the Bill should allow the states control the resources and their water ways. However, the senate leader, Ahmed Lawan, argued in favour of the bill, saying it will help to create more access to water. He called on his colleagues to support the Bill and give it expeditious passage it deserves.
The dispute over the bill, which pitched senators against one another and ended in an obvious stalemate in spite of Saraki’s directive that a committee be allowed to work on the document and report back within two weeks, is still lingering. According to reliable sources, the committee is yet to report back to the House on its assignment, weeks after the expiration of its mandate. And the senate is yet to revisit the controversial bill.
But discussion over the bill continues among Nigerians. Mixed reactions trail the continent and motive of the bill. Ekiti, Rivers and Cross River states have also come out to strongly reject the bill, while the South-South Governors’ Forum, led by Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa state, asked the President to immediately withdraw it. Ayodele Fayose; his Rivers State counterpart, Nyesom Wike; and Ben Ayade of Cross River State, were categorical in their opposition to the controversial bill.
What’s in it?
The controversial bill as an executive bill, originated from the presidency. It was then sent to the national assembly to be debated and possibly passed into law. Simply put, the bill seeks to place exclusive control of the country’s water resources, including all the rivers and lakes across the states, under the Federal Government. It is titled: “Framework for the Water Resources Sector in Nigeria, Provide tor the Equitable and Sustainable Development, Management, use and Conservation of Nigeria’s Surface Water and Groundwater”
The proposed bill, if passed into law, will transfer ownership of every lake, every river including the creeks or ancestral waters to the FG. It will repeal the Water Resources Act, River Basin Development sources in line with global best practices.
The Minister further appealed to stakeholders and Nigerians, in general, to have faith in the bill as it was for the good of the nation. “It is in the overall best interest of every citizen of the country that the process of its passage is not politicised. The general public is invited to note that this National Water Resources Bill when passed into Law, will better serve and provide for the enhancement of the Nigeria Water Sector in line with global best practices,” he said.
He said the attention of the ministry was drawn to the erroneous and distorted analysis of the National Water Resources Bill, which was currently before the Senate having already been passed by the House of Representatives. He noted that the overall objective was geared towards efficient management of the Water Resources Sector for the economic development of Nigeria and the well-being of its citizens.
“These Laws are Water Resources Act, Cap W2 LFN 2004, the River Basin Development Authority Act, Cap R9 LFN 2004, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (Establishment) Act, Cap N1100A.LFN, 2004 and National Water Resources Institute Act, Cap N83 LFN 2004. These Laws are being re-enacted with necessary modifications in the new bill to actualise current global trends and best practices in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).” He added that that the bill, drafted in 2006 had passed through series of consultations among stakeholders up to 2008, since which time it received no priority attention by successive administrations until now. The bill provides for professional and efficient management of all surface and groundwater for the use of all people.
Politics and the bill
But rather than be placated by the ministry’s appeal, political leaders from the southern parts of the country, under the aegis of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, insisted that the bill is a careful plot to deprive states of the little benefits they get from oil and other natural resources. The forum, in a statement signed by Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt), Yinka Odumakin (South-West), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-South) and Professor Chigozie Ogbu (South-East), asked the Senate to reject the bill.
“The attention of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has been drawn to the division in the Senate on a presidential bill seeking to concentrate the control of water resources in the hands of the Federal Government. The controversial parts of the bill are contained in Clauses 1 to 5. The clauses read, ‘All surface water and groundwater wherever it occurs is a resource common to all people, the use of which is subject to statutory control. There shall be no private ownership of water but the right to use water in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
“The Court of Appeal has settled this matter and the presidency should have been guided if institutional memory is guiding. The Appeal Court, on July 18, 2017 ruled thus: No doubt, the common radical denominator is the scope of waterways cutting across international and state boundaries coupled with a declaration by the National Assembly that such waterways are international or interstate respectively. The more obvious areas of coverage under the Exclusive List are the sea tidal waters and marine ports declared by the National Assembly to be federal ports. But one finds nothing on the Exclusive List dealing with intra-state waterways either in Lagos or any other state in the federation.
“We want to ask the President why he is interested in all rivers and their banks. If the Federal Government controls all rivers and their undefined banks, what happens to oil wells in the creeks that are onshore and other economic activities in other states at the banks? Has the President forgotten his statement in the US recently that the states cannot afford to fund their own police because they are currently receiving bailouts from the Federal Government? We want to know how the Federal Government further denying them access to economic activities in the river banks in their states will improve their lot.
“It is quite obvious that the goal of this is not water that the Federal Government can get in abundance by drilling boreholes. The goal is to use water to take over resources from the states instead of devolving more powers to them. We advise the Senate to urgently throw away this bill because it is anti-federalism and capable of further heating up the polity at a time we need peace to reign in the country,” the group warned
However, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, warned that the executive bill on water resources currently before the National Assembly may have been misinterpreted by the leaders as it was not intended to take over the ownership and control of the resource from the states of the federation as currently been alleged.
He said, “Upon submission of the National Water Resources Bill to the National Assembly by Mr. President on April 11, 2017, there have been several misrepresentations and indeed divisive comments by some persons on the content and intent of the bill, thus the need to offer these insights into the content, intent and policy direction of the executive bill. The bill is intent on consolidating some or all the laws on the water resources sector into one body of laws, whereby when you pick up the Water Resources Act (as it may come to be), you will find therein all the laws hitherto existing as different laws in different volumes of the laws of the federation in the one instrument.”
The laws to be harmonised by the legislation, according to Enang, include the Waters Act, Nigeria Hydrological Agency Act, National Water Institute Act and the River Basin Development Authorities Act, among others. These laws, he said, were made at different times regulating different aspects of water resources sector and contained in different volumes and chapters of the laws of the federation. “This bill brings into one body of consolidated, harmonised and updated body of laws all these laws into one instrument,” he noted. Good or bad bill?
Joining others to reject the bill, the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, an umbrella body of the people of South-South geo-political zone, said it portends great hazards to Niger Delta and detrimental to national unity. PANDEF, in a statement by the national secretary, Dr. Alfred Mulade, denouncing the Bill, said: “It is obnoxious and could trigger an unimaginable crisis. It must be rejected.”
“The recent bill submitted to the Nigerian Senate to wit: ‘A Bill for an Act to establish a Regulatory Framework for the Water Resources Sector in Nigeria; Provide for the equitable and sustainable redevelopment, management; use and conservation of Nigeria’s surface water and ground water resources and for related matter’ is not only provocative, but most insensitive to the national mood and an assault on the collective aspirations of Nigerians of goodwill to take the country out of the woods. The Bill is a step towards the destructive slope of internal neo-colonialism and it must be resisted,” the group said.
“Buhari’s water bill is a polarising document that can only serve to widen the gulf that has kept Nigeria as a country without a soul, a polity of about two hundred million people that is stuck in time and is unable to transit from the status of a state and a mere ‘geographical expression’ to a nation. No thanks to the perfidious activities of past and present rulers who celebrate injustice in the name of promoting unity and patriotism.
“It would not matter that it passed through a legal process. It would simply lack moral authority which would be the basis for another cycle of acrimony across the country. It is a strange thing that a federal government that has no land of its own save what it takes from the states, forcefully or otherwise- it is a matter of mystery that a centre that should properly speaking depend on its constituent elements for its existence now seeks to take what does not belong to it even at the expense of violating the Land Use Act that vests control of land in state governments,” Fasan insisted.
Senator Adesoji Akanbi (APC, Oyo South) is worried that the bill would contradict the provisions of the Land Use Act. He noted that should the federal government take control of interstate rivers, there would be crises between the states and the federal government on the ownership of the rivers.
“We must consider what the Land Use Act says. Who owns the land? Who controls mineral resources? The same constitution that gives ownership of land to states gives ownership of the resources in it to the federal government. The question now is: on which side will the water fall? But sincerely, I think land and the resources therein should be left with the states,” Akanbi stated.
But the federal government says the National Water Resources Bill will be beneficial to all Nigerians, whenever it is signed into law. The Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, said said that the bill would regulate the water sector in the country, adding, however, that even though water laws had been in existence since 2006, the bill was drafted in 2008.
“I have made a statement on this bill to the media some time ago. Also, other stakeholders in the water sector have been commenting in the media, trying to explain what this bill is all about. It appears that many people have not even read about the bill; they don’t understand it before coming out to comment publicly about it. We have said that there is nothing new about it, as we have existing water laws; there are four existing laws that we have been consolidated into the new document.
“The laws include the Water Resources Act of 2014, the National Water Resources Institute Act, the River Basin Act and Nigeria Hydrological Services Act. We just introduced the concept of Nigeria Integrated Water Resources Management, in line with the new water resources policy,” he said.
Adamu said that members of the Senate had asked all the relevant questions about the bill, while the key officials of the ministry had also responded to the enquiries. He added that the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, had already set up committees to look at all the issues presented by the ministry concerning the content of the bill. The minister commended the chairmen and members of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Water Resources for their interest and enthusiasm in the National Water Bill.
Also speaking, Mr Reuben Habu, the Executive Director, NIWRMC, said that the regulation of the water resources sector derived its origin and power from Section 19 of the Water Resources Act. He added that there was nothing new in the National Water Resources Bill. He noted that the bill was already before the National Assembly, adding that it was an amalgamation of all the extant laws on water resources in the country.
Six governors, under the auspices of the South-South Governors Forum had at an emergency meeting convened at the Rivers State Government House, Port Harcourt by the Governor of Bayelsa State and Chairman of the South-South Governors Forum, Seriake Dickson, vowed fight the bill.
The governors after a meeting held in May in statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Bayelsa State, Francis Agbo, said they rejected in totality the Waterways Bill being proposed by the federal government.
Dickson was quoted as saying, “We also agreed that the bill currently making round in the national assembly which we understand is an executive bill on management of water resources. We are of the view that the provisions of the bill are offensive and obnoxious, we disagree with the centralized control of water resources as we are already dealing with the problem associated with over centralization of our country and we have agreed that the bill should be immediately withdrawn by the federal government and further consultations be made on that.
Also, the President of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Pereotubo Oweilaemi, said the bill is targeted at the people of the Niger Delta, and aimed at finally stripping them of whatever they are left with as means of livelihood, as their lives are basically dependent on their aquatic environment.
According to him, previously enshrined laws of Nigeria, including the 1999 Constitution (as amended), have done enough damage to the Niger Delta man’s ability to economically sustain himself, adding that this new bill, if allowed to be passed into law, will reduce all the generations of Niger Delta people into slaves in their own homeland.
“The Water Resources Bill will not in any way benefit the Niger Delta people. We see it as another cattle colony. If it is allowed to be passed into law, we fear that our people will be strangulated economically.
“Already, the impacts of the previous draconian legislations, such as: Oil Pipeline Act, Petroleum Act, the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the Associated Gas (Re-injection) Act, the Land Use Act and many others have grievously affected the economic development of the region. The crisis in the region is being caused by these inimical legislations. We are like colonised people in the hands of the Nigerian government. We have perused the Bill clause by clause. There is nothing in the proposed law that will benefit the Niger Delta people. The achievement we shall have if the Bill is passed into law is ethno-religious crisis, just like the case of the grazing routs in the middle belt.
“We shall be committing an unforgivable crime against humanity on our future generation. The Bill is designed to divest the Niger communities of their exclusive control of the rivers and the creeks in the region. There is no future for the Niger Delta people if our only means of survival are being commercialised for national use. They have taken away the lands and the crude oil deposits found in our terrains through the previous draconian legislations. Now another Bill is being introduced to empower the federal government to exercise the exclusive management of the water resources, including our rivers.
“This is the worst form of democratic attrition. Niger Delta people are part of Nigeria, therefore we should not be subjected to internal slavery. We do not live in a conquered territory and so we refuse to be emasculated by the repressive Nigerian government. It is either the National Assembly rejects this Bill for the overall interest of peace in Nigeria or let them see Niger Delta boiling again for the oppressive act of this government through this antithetical Bill”, Oweilaemi argued.
Determined to ensure that the bill is not sacrificed on the altar of misinterpretation, the Presidency has advised state governors and others opposed to the water resources bill, to express their opposition to the bill through the National Assembly. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said lobbying the National Assembly members was one of the good things about democracy, asking those opposed to the bill to explore the option.
“The governors know the right thing to do. The matter is before the parliament and they know the parliamentary process. Lawmaking process is not new to them; they know it. So, why can’t they go and canvass their position in the parliament? They have members in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They can lobby. Why can’t they just go to the parliament and pass their views across? That is the good thing about democracy. Nobody will sit down and just make a law. The parliament is the custodian of the sovereignty of the Nigerian people. They should explore the parliamentary process and make their input. Even executive and private bills are defeated in the parliament once they don’t represent the views of Nigerians.”,” he said.
And as the fierce debate for and against the bill rages on, many observers are eager to see whether the proposed legislation would survive the heat and become a law or it would eventually be allowed to die a natural death.