There was confusion on Tuesday over the Water Resources Bill as two leaders of the House of Representatives sharply disagreed over public hearings on it.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Abubakar Fulata, who reintroduced the bill on July 23, 2020, said there would be no more public hearings on it.
He said a public hearing on the bill was held in the eighth National Assembly, adding that there was no need for another in the current ninth assembly.
But some National Assembly members from the Middle Belt and southern parts of the country vowed to resist any attempt to pass the bill.
In 2017, the executive presented the controversial bill to both chambers of the National Assembly. The bill looks to transfer the control of water resources from the states to the Federal Government.
The Senate on May 24, 2018, considered the executive bill for second reading, during which senators were divided across regional lines.
While northern senators supported the proposal and its objectives, their southern counterparts opposed it.
The controversy the bill generated 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.’
When passed, it will concentrate the control of water resources around rivers, Niger and Benue as well as other water ways which cut across 20 states in the hands of the Federal Government.
The affected states are: 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 organisations such as 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.
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