UNIPA, Yoruba Ronu warn Southern lawmakers over water resources bill
Water supply
A global self-determination group, United Indigenous People of Africa (UNIPA) and Southwest socio-political organisation, Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum, yesterday, warned Federal lawmakers, especially those from the Southern and Middle Belt Region to stand their ground against the reintroduction of the controversial Water Resources Bill in the National Assembly.
Warned against the danger inherent in the bill if passed into law, the two organisations said it would further subjugate the economic powers and independent of the Southern states to the Federal Government.
In a statement yesterday, the Co-Convener of UNIPA, Ms. Jean May, from New York, described the moves by the FG to take over the control of all water banks, including its streams and all resources therein, as an attempt to completely take over assets of the already oppressed indigenous people in the country.
The group described the newly re-introduced Water Resources Bill seeking to place the control of all resources accrued through water on the surface or in the ground under the control of the central government, as a mockery of the country’s already quasi-federal principles.
UNIPA says the bill is an attack on universal federalism and an exhibition of wickedness on the part of the Nigerian government, which it said if passed would further weakened the states and local governments that are already in bankruptcy due to usurpation of their functions.
It said there was no sense in the Bill. “For the sake of ordinary people who may not understand the danger ahead, the implications of the Water Resources Bill is that Osun-Osogbo River, Erin-Ijesha Water Fall, Asejire Water and others, which are Tourist Sites that generate millions of naira monthly to Osun government will now be administered by the Central Government. Specifically, it means that the Federal Ministry of Water Resources in Abuja will, now determine the administration of Osun-Osogbo Festival.
“Part of the implications of the Water Resources Bill is that the administration and control of Ipole/Iloro Water Fall, Ikogosi Warms Spring, Ado-Ekiti Water Works, Ero River, Ogidigbi Stream, Iyemero Water all in Ekiti State and across the south would now belong to the central government of Nigeria.”
President, Yoruba Ronu, Mr. Akin Malaolu, said for the Bill to have come up again for the third time portends great danger for Southwest states in particular.
He said, “We hope leaders in the south including political, traditional as well as religious are not keeping their silence on this all important matters and we are encouraging leaders to speak out before we are put at the mercy of those who believe that Nigeria is their sole property and other ethnic groups are slaves. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.”
