The Executive Director of “We the People,” Ken Henshaw, who spoke extensively on the provisions of the PIA, in a Town Hall Meeting themed; The PIA 2021: Challenges of Environmental Pollution in Nigeria’s Delta Communities, alleged that the Act does not provide freedom for the people of the Niger Delta.
Henshaw also asserted that the PIA does not define host communities, but gives oil companies the right to use the already existing framework to decide who is and is not a host community, a situation he said will make several communities to be eliminated as oil bearing communities.
Henshaw claimed that the PIA criminalizes host communities, as the Act provides that oil producing communities will be held accountable for any vandalization or oil spillage, a responsibility he said the JTF, Nigeria Civil Defence Corp and other security agencies failed to achieve.
The Executive Director of We the People further called on the people of the Niger Delta to ask for an amendment of the PIA.
Today FM’s Ifunanya Obeme-Ndukwe reports that oil host communities in the Niger Delta including; Rivers State, Bayelsa State and civil society groups were present at the Town Hall meeting organized by Social Action.
