Raise your hand if you read those Terms & Conditions before you signed up into that website. Of course, no one reads those things. But you would expect federal lawmakers to have their staff read parliamentary bills before they become laws. Of course in a nation where the chief media officer to a senator has his own chief media officer to the “chief media officer to a senator”, everything fails. You saw that interview where the head of media of a big time political leader excused his ignorance of top of the hour news because “his boys have not updated him”. Of course, he was too busy to have glanced through the dailies.
Where am I going? The oil producing states are realizing that the highly heralded Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) for the oil industry may be a poison pill in some areas. Ledum Mitee, a legal practitioner, commented on the 13% derivation to the states: “I think the unveiling of NNPC Ltd has grave implications to the states, especially of the oil-producing states. I think the states and the local councils took their eyes off the ball and they were done for in the passage of the PIB into PIA”.
The information minister under General Abdulsalami Abubakar when the 1999 Nigerian Constitution was adopted has confessed that he did not see the document for once. In other words, he was not allowed even as a minister. But do not see him as a victim: he was telling Nigerians that the Constitution will drive our democracy even though he had not seen it. And he did not resign!
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That says it: most of your leaders do not read those bills. Many surprises are coming as Abuja takes over everything because the breeder (NNPC) is caged.
For most of the states too busy with local politics to read written documents or hire young lawyers looking for jobs to do the needful, the destination now could be the Supreme Court: “Mr. Mitee further urged states not to hesitate to proceed to the Supreme Court to set aside several offensive portions of the PIA.” Indeed, this PIA was drafted over years but none paid attention. Now that it has gone into production, economic freedom fighters will emerge. With PIA, Nigeria scored against the states big time across many domains!
It is typical when elected representatives are too “big” to read bills before they become laws.
NNPC Fails To Remit Funds For 7 Straight Months, Some States Badly Affected in Nigeria
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It’s the same way people comment here on posts or articles they haven’t read, only that one has bigger implications than the other, but the same human flaws govern both.
The state governments didn’t pay attention, their elected representatives in Abuja were standing up and talking over the years, without knowing what was inside. Well, even the president that signed it wasn’t even aware of the contents, so it’s a universal thing. NNPC might also be seeking clarification, because its own status remains fuzzy: government is not getting alerts, NNPC is not trading at the stock exchange, the only thing we understand now is that it’s still in charge of importing petrol and paying subsidy.
Sometimes you don’t even know who to hold accountable, because it is not easy to understand how our government and its holdings are configured, so even the managers are as confused as the masses.
We struggle to write, we dread reading lengthy documents, even when called upon to explain things, we introduce more complexities to simple things. But we always brag about how much we know politics – politics of illiterates, filled with arrogance.
We are always ready to create unforced errors, even without being under pressure.