Ayade Fumes: Despite My Grammar Buhari Signed PIB

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State on Thursday fumed that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law despite all the grammar he used to articulate its negative impact upon his state.

Ayade spoke when he received a delegation of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) led by the state’s representative, Ntufam Eyo Nsa Whiley.

Whiley said they were in the state to sensitize the government and the people on the forthcoming stakeholders meeting with the leadership of the commission to collate views with regards to reviewing the current revenue formula.

Ayade, however, expressed scepticism that the new attempt at reviewing the current revenue formula would herald anything positive for the state, maintaining that he has no faith in RMAFC, as nothing concrete would come out of the exercise.

Recalling how the Senate Committee on PIB that toured the state failed to mirror the grievances of Cross River in the bill before it was finally signed into law by the President, the governor said the experience was enough “for us to express our deep and sincere distrust in the entire exercise and processes of RMAFC.”

Ayade who was visibly overwhelmed with anger said: “As I spoke to the Senate Committee on PIB then, I will choose same to communicate the position of Cross River State, which is that we do not have faith in this exercise, neither do we believe that it will end properly.”

Noting how he grammatically articulated the issues for the PIB committee, he said: “when the PIB committee visited, I took my time and articulated in the best of professional grammar to explain to them that producing communities are not as delicate and sensitive as impacted communities. Cross River State bears the brunt of production, but today the PIB is signed into law, insensitive to the oil impacted communities to which Cross River State belongs.

“In the same PIB, 30% of revenue is set aside for frontier exploration, luckily the Calabar basin which they refused to recognize in that category which stretches from all the mountain basins, cutting across the whole of Bakassi, Biase Odukpani, Okuni, Ogoja, Yala is heavily impregnated with hydrocarbon. The geo-coordinates have been issued by myself since 2016 to the federal government. Today we watch and see how the 30% set aside for the frontier exploration will be managed. And we will see what will happen to the Calabar basin.”

Ayade queried a scenario “where Edo, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom States; and Cameroon all have oil and Cross River will not have oil? And you sit on this injustice and it goes on year after year after year?”

According to the governor, “the principle under which RMAFC is set out and the way they are operating so far is inconsistent with the provisions of the law that established it. And I would like to have this on record that you have failed to use your mandate judiciously. You have failed to understand that the law empowers you to review the formula not based on obnoxious principles.”

Earlier, the state’s representative in RMAFC told the governor that “The essence of this visit is nothing more than to know where we stand and how we stand and where we can improve in the sense of the revenue that accrues to Cross River.

“What my colleagues in the 36 States and I are doing is a directive of President Mohammadu Buhari to go round and sensitize their own states’ indigenes  to know that it’s time for their revenue formula to be reviewed.”

GreenWhiteGreen GWG reports that the fury by Gov Ayade over the president’s assent to the PIB is bound to raise an issue among political stakeholders in Cross River who claimed that the governor’s defection to the All Progressives Congress, APC was meant to help the state politiically.

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