The youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-political organization, Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), has described water resources Bill as ‘Fulani expansionist agenda,’ calling for its rejection by southerners.

OYC said it arrived at the decision to call for the rejection of the plan to re-introduce proposed National Water Resources Management Bill by the National Assembly after a careful study of its implications.

Speaking through its National President, Comrade Igboayaka Igboayaka, the group urged the National Assembly members of Igbo extraction to roundly and unanimously reject the Bill as it sought to promote the Fulani expansionist agenda of grabbing the lands and depriving indigenous fishermen and farmers of their water.

Igboayaka, who noted that the controversial ‘Executive Bill’ similar to the widely rejected Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA) by Nigerians was first sent to the legislature in May 2017, debated by the lower chamber in July 2017 before it was roundly rejected by the Bukola Saraki-led 8th Senate, wondering why the Federal Government was hell-bent on imposing the Bill on the country despite its rejection by citizens.

The youth said: “That at a time the country, particularly the Southern region is demanding restructuring and elaborate devolution of power concentrated at the centre, the Federal Government is busy seeking ways to arrogate more power to itself to annex and control state resources, expressing worry that the Bill will further deplete the resources to the states and local governments.

It is simply a strategy for dispossession which is not what the country needed at this point in time.

“If the controversial Bill is not a careful plot for internal colonialism and to deprive states of the little benefits they derive from oil and other natural resources, in disguise, we want to ask the President why he is so much interested in all the rivers and their banks. If the Federal Government controls all rivers and their undefined banks, what happens to oil wells in the creeks that are onshore and other economic activities in other states at the banks? They still have a lot of explanation to offer to the masses and wait for their verdict.” (New Telegraph)

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