We will always protect Ijaw people’s interest on national issues – Hon. Abiante

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By Aaron Ossai

Lawmaker in the House of Representatives, Rep. Awaji Inombek Dagomie Abiante has assured Ijaw leaders of determination of Ijaw lawmakers in the National Assembly to always fight for their interest on any matters of national importance.

The lawmaker representing Andoni/Opobo/Nkoro Federal Constituency of Rivers state stated this on Wednesday in his office while addressing members of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) who paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

He also called on the Ijaw nation to build synergies with other ethnic nationalities with a view to forming a formidable team that can always champion a common objective for the benefit of Nigerians.

The INC was in his office to communicate the position of the Ijaw nation to him for onward transmission to other lawmakers of Ijaw extraction in the National Assembly on the reintroduced National Water Resources Bill.

“On this Bill, we’re all aware that this not the first time this Bill is coming up. It has been introduced, and we have always stood in defense of the interest of our people. And we pray, and we can even pledge that this time, will not be different.

“We have heard from you, we have heard the fears, and this is our own fear as well. We will stand by it. The waterways, the rivers, the creeks are equivalent to our own farm lands. And we will look at it in that light. We may have suffered some injuries during the enactment of the land use decree which from findings was actually a minority report. But today, we have to live with it. But now that we are here, given the opportunity, we will continue to defend the interest of our people,” he said.

While noting the importance of the visit, given the mood of the country, the Rivers-borne legislator commended the group for the thoughtfulness to reach out, suggesting that it be made more frequent like a retreat outside Abuja to provide background knowledge of the issue in question preparatory to legislative engagements in it.

“Thank you for the visit. We honestly would love this visit to be at intervals, not a one-off, and we would have been better impacted probably at the commencement of every session, you find time just like this maybe not even in Abuja, a retreat so that we can x-ray the peculiarities of our people. So we would be armed with same as we commence deliberations,” he said.

He therefore urged the group and the Ijaw nation as a whole to reach out to others of similar concerns for collaboration and effective expression of their concerns.

“We will also urge you to build synergies with other ethnic nationalities who have presence in the National Assembly so that we can work together as a team, whether they are in the minority or in the majority.

“What’s important to us is for everybody to understand the position of the Ijaw man, to understand the value of this resources that God has given to us, equating it with several other resources that are being managed by other interests son that we can honestly arrive a law that is necessary for Nigeria as a country, whilst not giving our own interest. And where the laws are also not exigent at this point, they should be jettisoned,” Abiante added.

Led by its President, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, the INC had earlier highlighted the reasons why Nigerians and Ijaw nation should reject the reintroduced National Water Resources Bill currently before the Legislature.

Prof. Okaba said: “Not withstanding that the Bill seeks to inter alia commercialize the utilization if water resources via a licencing regime and collapses previous legislation relating to water resources into a single instrument, the reintroduction of this Bill in the twilight days of the Buhari led administration; and at such a critical time in the history of the Nation Nigeria with the various recurrent challenges really cal for circumspect on the part of well meaning Nigerians, and indeed the Ijaw nation in the consideration of the Bill, which appears to be targeted at controlling the coastal environments of the Ijaw nation.

“That this Bill is a surreptitious attempt by the Federal government to usurp, erode and indeed witrle down the powers of the state Governors by the institutions to be established which are characteristically constituted/composed of majorly by persons from the Northern regions of the country who can and indeed will obviously exploit the objective provisions of the Bill to the advantage of their kinsmen, the Fulani herdsmen, to infiltrate the coastal environments without any inhibitions or control whatsoever, under the guise of “public interest” and citizens equal right of access to waterways, etc, to the detriment, prejudice and harm of the indigenous customary and ancestral owners and users if water ways (the Ijaw people).

“The express inclusion of Land as part of the resources to be managed bybe institutions established under the Bill is a subtle but deliberate usurpation of the powers of a state Governor in violation of the provisions of the Land Use Act of 1979 which entrusts all lands within a state on the Governor for the benefit of the citizens,” the position paper stated among other things.