The National Water Resources Bill
It is a common knowledge that the Ijaw Youths Council recently issued a release which among other things stated that if the government should reintroduce the controversial water Resources Bill formally stepped down by the 8th Assembly, the South will do everything lawful to resist the passage of the bill. They said that this bill should not become another petroleum law that has denied the Niger Delta people from controlling the resources in their land.
Clearly, some may characterize this fresh threat as a familiar “music;” however, to others, it`rings apprehension that the nation is having on its hands a situation that unless we repurpose our priority may constrain the nation’s key resource, affect a wide swath of people; depress the economy, and adversely affect the socioeconomic well-being of the nation. The bill which emanated from the executive arm, among other things, seek to establish a regulatory framework for the water resources sector in Nigeria, provide for the equitable and sustainable development management, use and conserve Nigeria’s surface water, groundwater resources and related matters.
From the above explanation evolves the most telling evidence about the bill’s good intention which is signposted in the federal government’s resolve to promote judicious management of the nation’s water resources in addition to the possibility of the bill if passed, acting as an enabler to the nation’s attainment/ achievement of the orchestrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) as preached by the United Nations.
But despite ‘these virtues and attributes, the worries expressed by the Ijaws and other residents of the region can neither be described as unfounded nor unique as there are visible ingrain challenges/ consequences arising from its nature, impact, and strategy- a feat that has since mirrored the entire document (bill) as a body without a soul.
Going by the content of the bill, it is easy to situate without labour that the greatest ill associated with it lies in its tendency to dissenfranchising, and separating Nigerians from ancestral ownership of their water rights and handover some to a set of federal technocrats by confusing Nigerians with the fallacy that “ownership rights to water is the same as water use rights.’’
Also working against the bill is the accompanying belief by Nigerians with critical interest that the urge to have the bill passed is driven not by love for having the nation’s water resources judiciously managed or for the nation to develop agriculturally as claimed by the lawmakers, but by sectional and parochial interests such that some pro bill senators in the outgone 8th Assembly used barefaced inaccuracies to mislead the Senate and drum up support for the bill.
For example, it has been claimed on the floor of the outgone Assembly Senate that the World Bank is waiting on passage of the bill into law to “grant” trillions of naira to develop Nigeria’s irrigation infrastructure. This cannot be further from the truth. The World Bank would never and cannot ask a nation to dispossess her citizens of their inherited and cultural rights to water as a condition for granting loans.
Another obstacle that confirms the bill as plagued however seems not to raise so much dust but could be costly in economic and political terms if ignored, is the asymmetrical support structure given to the bill. It is barefaced that virtually all the senators in the former assembly that queued behind the bill were from water-poor states and regions that stand to gain from the passage of the bill.Interpretatively, this lopsided support given to the bill looking at commentaries was fuelled not by the burning desire for the public good but for sectional gain. Glaringly as it stands, this trend no doubt has become a pernicious problem embedded in our administrative culture that will be too difficult to eradicate. And has also necessitated the question as to how the nation can redistribute lands from land-rich states to land-poor states since the bill if passed as it is without amendment could conceivably make inter-basin transfers of water to be undertaken by the federal government without consent from or even consultation from indigenous communities… exactly like crude oil and associated problems of mean, wicked and evil inequities.
The bill in the writer’s views has justified the fears by Nigerians with discerning minds that the federal government by this move to acquire more power may not be interested in the devolution of power as currently demanded by Nigerians or maybe paying lip service to the imperativeness and urgency of having this country restructured. Accordingly, the whole argument by the FG becomes even vaguer when one remembers that some of these items will be better handled and serves the greater good to the greater number of the people if left in the hands of the state, the local government or private owners.