Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio, the leading sociocultural organization of the Ibibio extraction in Akwa Ibom State, has taken on policymakers and the National Assembly in opposition to the divisive water resources law.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) ongoing strike, insecurity, and depreciation of the Naira, among other issues, should have been the focus instead, according to the union.
This was stated in a statement issued during the central working committee meeting on Saturday in Uyo, the state capital, and signed by Akparawa James Edet, the international president of Mboho Mkparawa, and Akparawa Bassey Bassey, the general secretary.
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If passed, the water resources bill that is currently before the National Assembly would give the Federal Government ownership, control, and management of surface and subsurface waters.
But the Union urged governors in the Niger Delta and other coastal States, as well as National Assembly members, irrespective of political party biases to rise against the repugnant bill, describing it as repressive and an insult to the sensibilities of people in the coastal States who are the original owners of the water.
The statement emphasized that the people will use all peaceful and legal means at their disposal to prevent the bill, which it referred to as a scheme to further impoverish them, from becoming law.
The communique in parts, “we urge all governors and National Assembly members from the Niger Delta region and other coastal States in Nigeria to rise against the proposed Water Resources Bill being put forward for consideration at the National Assembly, irrespective of political party affiliations.
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“That at a period where our students have been grounded at home for over six months due to the ASUU strike, at a time insecurity has attained monumental proportions with killings and abductions for ransom, at a time that the country’s currency, the naira, is on a free fall and at its lowest ebb ever in the history of our country, at a time enterprises are shutting down and foreign investors are leaving the country due to unbearable operational costs and poor economic policies, what should preoccupy policy makers in our nation should be how to channel all energy and resources towards tackling those issues and not to plunge the country into more avoidable crisis, with such a highly contentious bill which is suspected to have been put forward to serve sinister and sectional interests.”
The union urged other patriotic Nigerians who care about the country’s cohesion and togetherness to join them in opposing the law.
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