By Chukwuka Ugokwe :
Leaders and stakeholders of oil and gas host communities have blamed lack of trust, transparency, oil spillage and other environmental challenges on prevailing crisis within oil communities across Nigeria.
They stressed the need for leadership of host communities to take responsibilities of these challenges, including being abreast with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act to ensure equity, justice and fairness in implementation of the Act.
The stakeholders stated this in Awka, Anambra State during a 2-day Capacity Building on Strategic Leadership Skills and Host Communities Provisions in the PIA for Leaders of Oil and Gas Producing Host Communities.
Executive Director, African Centre For Leadership, Strategy and Development, Monday Osasah in his remarks, stressed the need for communities to be sensitized and conscientized so they appreciated their responsibilities in relation to the provision of the law.
According to him, empowering the leaders with strategic leadership skills to mobilize stakeholders and effectively engage with International Oil Companies (IOCs) and other relevant stakeholders was critical to ensuring peaceful coexistence of the communities within the zone.
He expressed joy that some leaders of the host communities were already members of the Board of Trustees (BOT) which, he described as one major step of taking ownership of the process as contained in the PIA.
He said, “Today, we have leaders from 5 different states, Imo, Delta, Abia, Ondo and Anambra. There’s needs for these leaders to be brought to speed so as to have seamless negotiations as they engage in multinational oil purposes.
“Our expectation is that the communities will understand the provisions of the law and know what to demand and how to manage it to avert crisis.
“We don’t want what happened in Niger Delta to repeat itself. Hence the need for early preparation of community leaders ahead of implementation of the PIA, especially now the guidelines have been released.
Declaring the workshop open, Commissioner for Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Barr. Anthony Ifeanya regretted obvious apprehensions within communities following slow implementation of the PIA with regards to the Host Community Trust Fund.
He underscored the place of confidence building between operators, state and host communities, revealing state government plans to make the host communities models through infrastructural development.
Chairman Anambra State Civil Society Network, Prince Chris Azor said the project was aimed at ensuring that host Communities benefited from the extractives as enshrined in the PIA.
“n the Host Community Development Trust (HCDT), investors are required to contribute 3% of their operational expenditure to the HCDT, which funds development projects in host communities.
“However, there are required procedures to engage and ensure equity and inclusion in decision making, participation in benefit sharing for sustainable development,” he added.
On his part, Programme Coordinator, Centre LSD, Mr Vincent Dania noted that the PIA brought clarity to the various issues that had posed challenges to the communities, saying ability to understand it would assist them hold oil operators and government accountable.
Presenting a paper titled, Strategic Leadership Skills, Director of Strategy , Centee LSD, Mr Itia Otabor called on leaders to be strategic to provide vision and direction for the growth of their various communities.
Ugokwe is of the State Ministry of Information
