In what can only be described as a most shameful and rather disrespectful attempt by an inordinately profit-driven company to arm-twist the sovereign National Assembly of our entire country, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company, NLNG, has gone to war against our supreme parliament over one of the legislature’s most people-oriented amendments to any law so far.
The amendment in question is section 7b which provides for the payment of a meager 3 percent of the NLNG’s yearly budget to the coffers of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, in line with section 14, subsections 1 and 2b of the NDDC establishment Act, 2000.
It is now crystal clear that the NLNG is a most rascally coporate citizen determined to ride roughshod over the laws and sovereignty of our country.
By insisting that its enabling law must never be reviewed, reassessed or revisited, it is simply demanding to be made into an outlaw by the instrumentality of the law itself.
The unmistakable implication of such a mindset is that NLNG undoubtedly sees itself as a corporation that stands like a colossus, well above the law of the land. For this most unconscionable insult alone, whereby a mere company, now brazenly views itself as so gargantuan that it must be accorded the status of a demigod that may not be questioned to any legally viable degree, the National Assembly must stick to its guns with the Senate speedily concurring with the aforesaid amendment for prompt dispatch to the Presidency for assent.
In an era in which the National Assembly is being bombarded right, left and center with all manner of attacks and grievances both real and imagined, it is most heartwarming and truly commendable that it can remain focused on its core mandate of making laws for the optimal administration of our country.
Some of its rather impressive interventions thus far are the passage of the National Maritime University law and the amendment to the NLNG act over which the latter has chosen to go to war with the hallowed chambers of our first arm of government.
Both legislative milestones, amongst others, on its part, have clearly marked the National Assembly out as an authentic friend of the Niger Delta and a first arm of government well alive to its responsibilities in a fledgling democracy.
Indeed, it is in this connexion that it simply cannot afford to be intimidated out of its mandate to the people by subordinating their interests to those of a most shamelessly exploitative corporation like NLNG.
If we may ask, what was NLNG thinking all along? That its enabling law with its insanely favourable clauses and unheard of privileges is somehow a divine law of God Almighty that must not be tampered with? Was the law not made by man and so can be amended by man.
Is the enabling law of NLNG part of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai during the Exodus that our distinguished legislators must now be expected by the company to quake in dread at any attempt to review it? What is the matter with these people, anyway? Can the investors in NLNG try such absolute nonsense anywhere else in the world? Will they get such enslaving concessions anywhere in Europe, or America, or even in the Middle East, or indeed wherever their never-seen-before foreign investors hail from? Will they dare approach the British Parliament or the U.S. Congress to demand such demeaning entitlements that heinously shortchange a sovereign state?
So in their opinion, Nigeria is a banana republic where anything goes and where some parasitic company will just sit back, relax and suck us dry with the permission of our own government? Are they not aware that change has come to Nigeria and that not even NLNG can remain a sacred cow to which it may not apply?
In any case, what was that utter nonsense the company was alluding to about successive governments acquiescing to the abhorrent clauses our noble House of Representatives has now most commendably dented in service to the Nigerian people? If past administrations had failed to be alive to their responsibilities, how can that possibly justifiably emasculate the present National Assembly from doing the needful?
What was NLNG expecting from Nigeria – that it would basically operate forever, indeed till kingdom come, while enjoying insane privileges it cannot dare ask for anywhere else in the civilized world? Where a company is allowed the enjoyment of a tax holiday, is it then tenable for the company to expect the holiday to last forever? Is a tax holiday meant to last till the end of time? Where does any holiday ever last forever? Did these people not go to school? If NLNG was a student and it was sent on a holiday to last forever by the headmaster, would it not be sensible enough to realize it has been indirectly expelled from the institution? Who ever goes on a holiday that lasts forever unless to the land of the dead?
Why do these people expect to come to our country and be accorded privileges that can only amount to a most intolerable insult to a sovereign nation, the most populous black nation on Earth and Africa’s number one economy for that matter? Do we really look like a toothless bulldog or some worthless paper tiger in the assessment of NLNG?
And what was that utter balderdash about foreign investors not coming to Nigeria because the NLNG act was amended? Since the NLNG has been operating above the law, enjoying the utterly insane privileges it can never get in the home countries of its investors, how many other investors have decided to invest in Nigeria because of such privileges? How many investors has NLNG itself succeeded in attracting to Nigeria with the enticement of enjoying similar privileges?
How come Nigeria has not become a magnet for foreign investment of untold magnitude even with the unheard-of concessions extended to the likes of NLNG? Who do these people think they are talking to? That we are some backward Africans who do not know our rights or indeed what obtains in the world at large? When we hear “foreign investor”, are we then supposed to start quaking with fear, take leave of our senses, rolling on the ground like slaves without heritage and simply yield our very sovereignty to foreigners because they want to exploit while pretending to invest?
We know the difference between foreign investment and foreign exploitation and NLNG is not a foreign investor; it is a foreign exploiter. If nothing else, the amendment recently heroically accomplished by the House of Representatives only serves to rehabilitate the corporation, thereby making it a genuine foreign investor by bringing it within the ambit of the rule of law, properly so-called, as opposed to the outlaw status it has enjoyed since inception!
That previous governments failed in reining in the company and subjecting it to the laws of the land like everyone else, human or corporate, far from being any tenable reason why the status quo should be maintained in this dispensation, is the very reason why the company must now be compelled to subject itself to the law in line with the rule of law in a democratic setting.
That one has been making a mistake everyday of one’s life till today is not a reason to continue making a fool of oneself, going forward.
If nothing else, it is the precise reason why one must make a u-turn and vow never to repeat the mistake, ever again! After all, as the believers say, today is the day of salvation and it must not be left till tomorrow for tomorrow it may be too late and that is if tomorrow even comes for the unbeliever at all!
For the information of the NLNG, a new sheriff is in town and his game is anything but business as usual.
Thankfully, the National Assembly is leading the way in admirable bipartisan fashion in which a noble bill sponsored by the erudite Leo Ogor, the PDP Minority Leader of the House, inspired the honourable members, be they APC or PDP to close ranks and take a common stand for the good of the common people who sent them to the legislature.
Over here in the Niger Delta, we are impressed to see our national lawmakers from every geo-political zone coming together to do something concrete and laudable for our people.
This is the kind of National Assembly we yearn for and kudos to all our illustrious legislators across the nation for this noble feat in defiance of a truly Machiavellian company that insists on operating much like an untouchable vampire in our region.
By this historic milestone, they have ably complimented the sagacity of Mr. President who through his impressively cerebral Vice recently embarked on a most endearing outreach to the Niger Delta. It is not one arrogant company that should now be allowed to throw a most insolent spanner in the works of the unprecedented determination of our President and his Vice to finally engage our people as we have been clamouring for long.
If no man is above the law, it cannot be a company that can be above the law. The hideous rascality of NLNG must no longer be tolerated by this nation. We of the Niger Delta cannot anymore stomach this most arrogant of firms that sees us as subhuman slaves only good enough to be exploited.
I recall how the company similarly fought tooth and nail not to be taxed by NIMASA in accordance with the crystal-clear law of the land.
Now that it seeks to shortchange the entire people of the Niger Delta we must insist on delivering the company of the avaricious demons that have possessed it or we will just have to cast and bind it where it belongs.
The people of the Niger Delta have found in the present board of the NDDC, a veritable instrument for encompassing a paradigm shift in bringing development to the region. We not only expect the board to perform but insist that it must excel.
In any case, all eyes are on the board and as such it has a lot to prove, being the first non-PDP appointed board since the commission’s inception. Irrespective of party affiliation, it is our common resolve as Niger Deltans to require of it, its mandate truly and fully discharged to the betterment of our region.
Yet it cannot possibly make sense to expect heaven and earth from a commission with one arm tied behind its back by lawless corporations like NLNG which insist on operating in our region without contributing their fair share to its development.
Since we insist that the commission must perform to the point of excelling, we cannot in good conscience allow it to be shortchanged by pathologically self-centered and socially irresponsible corporations which dream of feeding fat from our region forever without giving us anything in return.
If NLNG thinks it is its laughably miserly literary prize it awards once in a blue moon that should suffice as its coporate responsibility, then I can only say it is indeed a company that must be laboring beneath a rock bottom conceptualization of corporate responsibility be it legal or social!
For NLNG’s information, we have an NDDC we insist must discharge its mandate and acquit itself of the Niger Deltan people’s expectations in the present dispensation.
This it must do if it is to fully key into the Presidency’s outreach to the region for its concise engagement going forward.
We therefore insist that nothing that will prevent the commission from delivering on its mandate either by inadequate budgetary provisions by government or non-release of funds as and when due should rear its ugly head in the present dispensation.
Given that government is now becoming more alive to its responsibilities, it is certainly not any company, be it local investor or foreign investor that should be allowed to constitute an obstacle to the progress of the region at this critical juncture of our life as a nation.
The amendment to the NLNG law will go down in history as one of the greatest legacies of the present National Assembly. It is a ray of hope for the good people of the Niger Delta and it must stay, has come to stay and will surely stay.
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