Confusion has been rising in the House of Representatives as two leaders of the House disagreed over public hearings on the Water Resource Bill.
The House Deputy Majority Leader, Peter Akpatason, in an interview with ThePunch, said a public hearing would be held on the controversial bill, which was abandoned by the eighth National Assembly.
On the contrary, the Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Abubakar Fulata, who reintroduce the bill on July 23, 2020, said there would be no more public hearing on the bill.
He added that a public hearing on the bill was held in the eighth National Assembly and that there was no need for another in the current ninth assembly.
However, some National Assembly Members from the Middle Belt and the southern parts of Nigeria had vowed to resist any attempt to pass the bill.
The executive in 2017 had presented the controversial bill to both chambers of the National Assembly. The bill sought to transfer the control of water resources from the states to the Federal Government.
On May 24, 2018, the Senate considered the executive bill for second reading. It then, divided the Senators across regional lines.
Northern Senators supported the proposal and its objectives, their southern counterparts opposed it.
The controversy over the bill frustrated its passage by both the Senate and House of Representatives.
The proposed law is titled, ‘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 Groundwater Resources and for Related Matter.’
If the bill is passed, it will concentrate the control of water resources around rivers Niger and Benue as well as other waterways which cuts across 20 states in the hands of the Federal Government.
The affected states included Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Edo, Delta, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Anambra, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa, Taraba, Nasarawa, Niger, Imo, Rivers, Bayelsa, Plateau, and Kebbi states.
Nobel laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka; and organizations such as the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum; the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, and the Middle Belt Forum, had last week warned the Federal Government and the National Assembly against bringing back the bill.
