By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata<\/p>\n
Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has urged the Federal Government to urgently review the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), warning that its current structure is fueling tension in oil-producing communities.<\/p>\n
Diri made the call on Saturday in Yenagoa during a triple celebration marking the book launch, 60th birthday, and 25th wedding anniversary of King Bubaraye Dakolo, Chairman of the Bayelsa State Traditional Rulers Council.<\/p>\n
In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Alabrah, the governor faulted the exclusion of states and local governments from managing host community funds, describing the provision as a \u201ctime bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also demanded a reversal of the reduction of community entitlements from 10% to 3%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe percentage due to oil communities, conspiratorially reduced from 10 per cent to three per cent, must be reviewed,\u201d Diri said.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcluding states and councils from managing these funds is a recipe for crisis. I urge President Bola Tinubu to act swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n
His remarks followed comments by Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, who noted that litigations from host communities had delayed access to the Petroleum Industry Trust Fund intended for their development.<\/p>\n
Diri also hailed King Dakolo as a literary giant and justice advocate, announcing a \u20a6100 million donation on behalf of the Bayelsa State Government to support his book launch.<\/p>\n
He further directed that Dakolo\u2019s book The Kingfisher be included in the state\u2019s secondary school curriculum.<\/p>\n
Lokpobiri, who chaired the occasion, described Dakolo as a visionary leader and urged operators of illegal refineries to desist from activities causing environmental damage.<\/p>\n
NDDC Managing Director, Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, commended Dakolo for documenting his experiences and pledged that the Commission would procure large volumes of his books for schools across the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has urged the Federal Government to urgently review the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), warning that its current structure is fueling tension in oil-producing communities. Diri made the call on Saturday in Yenagoa during a triple celebration marking the book launch, 60th birthday, and 25th wedding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":74693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74694,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74692\/revisions\/74694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}