REMARKS BY RT. HON. DUMNAMENE R. DEKOR, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON HOST COMMUNITIES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT AN INTERACTIVE HEARING WITH COMPANIES AND REGULATORS HELD ON MONDAY, MAY 10, 2021, AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
I warmly welcome our guests to this interactive hearing. The Committee does not take it for granted that you – as busy executives with demanding schedules – have found time to be present with us. I want to also thank my colleagues, partners, consultants and the Committee Secretariat for the efforts being made to help us collectively discharge our mandate.
We decided to invite you today as part of our ongoing consultations and search for solutions to the myriad of challenges besetting oil bearing communities of the Niger Delta Region (NDR) and indeed other host communities of Nigeria. These challenges have been substantially documented. However, resolution of the challenges has remained a burden that must be discharged by all, including state and non-state actors.
No doubt, the National Assembly plays a vital role in resolving the challenges. Thus, the Committee on Host Communities in the House of Representatives presents a window to broaden productive engagements on the issues and chaperon a focused and concerted front for solutions. The Committee is seized of the burden of deploying legislative measures to improve the lot of oil producing host communities, especially the lives and living conditions of the people and the environment. As clearly spelt out in the Standing Orders of the House, the Committee is charged with the following responsibilities and oversight mandate:
(a) Welfare and protection of rights of oil mineral producing communities
(b) Ensuring the implementation of agreements with Host communities by both Government, Public, Private and International Organizations
(c) Oversight of implementations\Utilizations of 13% Derivation Funds in Host Communities
(e) All petitions from host communities
(f) Oversight of implementation/Utilization of Host Communities Funds and
(g) Hydrocarbon pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
As a Committee, we processed a vision based on the above (7) defined responsibilities to pursue a Fair Deal and Environmental Justice for Host Communities of Nigeria. This vision will be driven by a mission to deploy all legislative instruments and allowable extra-legislative measures to ensure the realization of our mandate. We are not unaware of the variegated stakeholder matrix connected with host communities’ issues. We are also aware that the various interests of stakeholders are not always complementary to one another and the individual pursuit thereof can be conflict-prone. Based on this understanding, we are conscious of the need to be sensitive to the concerns of all interests and stakeholders and accommodate them as much as possible in performing our duties.
Accordingly, our strategy in the Committee is anchored on multi-level stakeholder consultations to advance conciliation and promote harmony amongst all. We therefore come in PEACE which stands for Partnership & Engagements for Advancing Community Emancipation. At the core of the PEACE Strategy is the activation of carefully identified Partnerships that will advance a sustained and sustainable resolution of the challenges of host communities as much as possible. This is why, as indicated in your invitation letter, a key objective of this interaction is to appraise efforts of stakeholders in creating harmonious relations and forestalling build-up of grievances into restiveness that could jeopardize peace and disrupt legitimate economic activities.
We have modeled our engagements around the key foundation of accurate data and knowledge sharing. This is why your invitation letter also contained request for certain data from you to help us understand ourselves better. We regard your compliance to the requests as a measure of your acceptance of our consultative and conciliatory approach, and by extension, our offer of PEACE so that together, we can resolve the challenges of host communities. We are particularly keen to have your presentations made along disaggregated Project Level Reporting lines.
The Committee is open to learning in the belief that no one has monopoly of knowledge; and we are ready to stand down on any assumed position in the face of available facts and superior arguments. But we will push back at deliberate efforts to cloak facts and obfuscate issues under whatever guise. I promise that this Committee will draw on all available enablement and support systems provided for in the laws and best practices to achieve its mandate.
This interactive hearing is one in a series of engagements with various stakeholders in fulfillment of our mandate. We will sustain efforts to engage with everyone with a stake in the affairs of host communities and we request your cooperation in our reach-out and outreaches. Together, we can make the host communities happy while we happily go about our businesses without let or hindrances. Once again, on behalf of the Committee, I welcome you to this session.
