The foremost socio-cultural organisation of the Ibibio extraction in Akwa Ibom State, Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio has tackled policy makers and the National Assembly against the contentious water resources bill.
The union said they should have focused on how to solve the myriads of problems bedeviling the country, such as the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, insecurity and devaluation of Naira.
This was contained in a communique signed by the International President of Mboho Mkparawa, Akparawa James Edet and the General Secretary, Akparawa Bassey Bassey at the end of the central working committee meeting held on Saturday in Uyo, the State capital.
The water resources bill, which is currently before the National Assembly, if considered, would confer ownership, control and management of surface and underground waters on the Federal Government.
But the Union describing the bill as repressive and affront to the sensibilities of people in the coastal States who are the original owners of the water, 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.
The communique stressed that the people will fight with all peaceful and constitutional means available to ensure the bill, which it described as a ploy to further impoverish them, will not see the light of the day.
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.
“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 called on other patriotic Nigerians who desire the unity and cohesion of the country to lend their voices as well in stopping the bill.
