Elders, leaders to storm Bayelsa Assembly on BASAOPADEC bill
By Theo Agidee
Demand for the creation of the Oil and Gas Producing Area Development Commission (BASAOPADEC) in Bayelsa state appears to be growing daily.
The latest being, a threat by community, youth and opinion leaders in Yenagoa to mobilize to the Complex of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to actualize this desire.
In a communiqué issued to the media last weekend by concerned stakeholders following a forum in Yenagoa, they observed that the state would be better off with a BASOGPADEC bills signed into law.
Spokesperson for the participants at the interaction, Chief Mieteme George Ogu told journalists that the Bayelsa state government has been shortchanging oil producing and impacted communities in the manner the 13% derivation from the federation account was being used.
Oil producing communities, Ogu warned, would no longer fold it arms and watch government and its officials spend the 13% derivation fund in ways that has no bearing on the lives of the impacted people.
Ogu also declared that impacted communities would soon be mobilized to the Complex of the Bayelsa state House of Assembly to press the legislators to pass the law expected to plough part of oil allocation funds into project for oil communities.
Ogu who warns that lawmakers stand the risk of incurring the wrath of their constituents also said, the state's assemblymen should borrow a leaf from their counterparts in Edo, Delta and Imo that have since signed their Oil and Gas Producing Area Development Commission bill into law.
The forum also pledged support for a suit instituted against the Bayelsa state government on the issue at a federal high court in Port Harcourt by Messrs Chief Felix Oputu, Johnathan Diekedie, Comrade, Nimitei Yabo, Apostle Okiapke Abile, Chief Daufa Ologo and Jeremiah Marian.
It would be recalled that before the inception of Chief Timipre Sylva's administration in Bayelsa, several individuals and groups had at different occasions called for the creation of an oil and gas agency. In 2008 the Bayelsa state government was sued over the matter by some indigenes of the state.
It is believed that the establishment of the oil and gas commission would go a long way in complementing government's effort in bringing development to the people living in oil communities.
