Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) seeking big reforms in the sector has cleared every legislative hurdle and is on its way to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
After prolonged bickering over what should be allocated to host communities, Nigeria’s House of Representatives has finally passed the long-awaited PIB.
This means the bill now requires only President Muhammadu Buhari’s signature to become law.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the House of Representatives voted on Friday to approve the PIB, putting an end to 20 years of debates and delays.
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Despite the disagreements, the lower chamber “was left with no option” than to put the bill to a vote, according to an account of proceedings from the office of the House’s speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila.
This means Nigerian two legislative houses have now passed the bill, despite some last-minute debates regarding two provisions the Senate had added in recent days.
One of them included giving refiners licenses to import crude linked to their refining capacity. This could basically give Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote a near-monopoly in fuel import licenses because the refinery his Dangote Group is currently building will have a massive capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (BPD).
The other debatable last-minute provision concerns exploration in northern Nigeria.
The bill is creating a fund to back the so-called ‘frontier’ exploration for oil in the northern part of the country. Community leaders in the south have argued that the financial parameters for exploration in the north are high.
International oil majors have not been flocking to Nigerian oil assets now that fossil fuels are even more fiercely competing for Big Oil‘s capital plans as major’s start shifting more funding to low-carbon energy sources.
Oil firms operating in Nigeria, such as Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies received concessions in the latest version of the bill, compared to a previous draft from last year, according to Bloomberg.
Nigeria has agreed to reduce the taxes and royalties, exempted deep offshore oil and gas production from the so-called “hydrocarbons tax.”
Next process for the PIB
After the Senate and House of Rep passed the bill, all the original papers will be sent to the clerk of the National Assembly who then sends it to the President for his signature.
Here the President is involved in law-making by signing bills into law. A bill does not become law until the President signs it.
The clerk of the National Assembly will “enrol” the bill for the President’s signature. Enrolment is the production of a clean copy for the assent of the President.
If the president withholds assent, another stage sets in. The President has 30 days to sign a bill sent to him by the National Assembly. If he disagrees with the provision of the bill or some aspects of it, he can veto it by withholding his signature.
Within 30 days the President must communicate to the National Assembly his feelings and comments about the bill. The President must state the areas he wants to be amended before he signs the bill.
If the National Assembly agrees with the President the bill can be withdrawn for deliberation on the amendments suggested by the President.
The National Assembly is empowered by the Constitution to overrule the veto of the President.
If, after 30 days, the President refuses to sign the bill and the National Assembly is not in support of the President’s amendments, the two Chambers can recall the bill and re-pass it.
If the bill is passed in the form it was sent to the President by a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers, the bill automatically becomes a law even without the signature of the President.
Despite decades of sluggish progress, experts say the PIB like the ones that have preceded it ignores an open secret concerning how the world is undergoing an energy transition from fossil fuels to a system based on renewable energy sources.
