Abubakar Malami, the former
attorney general of the federation, says President Muhammadu Buhari rejected
the petroleum industry governance bill (PIGB) because the interest it
represented was compromised.
He disclosed this during his
ministerial screening at the senate, in Abuja, on Friday.
The PIGB is conceived to
liberalise the governance structure of Nigeria’s oil industry by giving the
Nigerian Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NPRC) the powers to enforce industry
laws, regulations, and standards.
Buhari had rejected the bill after it was passed by the national assembly.
At the time, the presidency had
defended the rejection, saying it was based on “legal and constitutional
reasons”.
At the screening on Friday,
Malami said Buhari rejected the bill because the interest of host communities
was compromised.
He said approving the bill would
have led to conferring power on an individual as against the institution.
“That bill (the PIG Bill) was
fundamentally rejected among others, by the president because of the fact that
the interest of the host community was compromised, in the sense that
self-serving sections were brought into it, conferring powers on an individual
as against the institution,” he said
“The public interest element of
the role of the president requires that the public interest should be factored
more as against public or individual interests.”
The house of representatives had
since passed the PIGB again, saying it has rectified the concerns raised by the
president.
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