Introduced in 2008 at the Federal Government’s instance, the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) now has a reputation for being one of the oldest and most contentious bills in Nigeria’s legislative history. Corruption, bad politics and deeply vested interests have all combined to ensure that the bill remains a miscarriage. It is a bill that is promoted as one that would sanitise the petroleum industry in Nigeria, improve benefits to the national economy and address the environmental and social costs borne by host communities. However, since its introduction 13 years ago, the bill has suffered several unfortunate and avoidable setbacks. That is why there was heightened expectation when the Muhammadu Buhari government reintroduced the PIB as an executive bill to the 9thNational Assembly, which promised to speedily pass the bill into law by the second quarter of 2021.
In line with its standing orders and house rules, the National Assembly announced a public hearing on the bill. The public hearing was expected to provide an avenue for public input into the bill and capture all the concerns by different interests. Public hearings, organised as part of the law-making process, enable the coalescing of recommendations from critical stakeholders to enable legislators to produce legislation that best serves the national interest, which cannot be divorced from citizens’ good.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. In other words, is a scheme that promises to pay cash to encourage forests to be set aside as carbon sinks in mitigating climate change. The scheme which was first introduced to Nigeria in Cross Rivers state has received condemnation from well-meaning stakeholders including the host communities and civil society organisations for its failure to meet up with the initial promised it held. While the locals are prevented and even arrested by the REDD+ enforcement and monitoring task force for taking advantage of the resources of the forests earmarked for this scheme, very little or nothing has come to them as compensation for preserving the forest. This has robbed them of the means of livelihood from lumbering and farming, a profession they have known all their lived.
Social Action Field Monitoring Team with a local at Osse Forest Reserve
When the news of the expansion of REDD+ to Nasarawa and Ondo States broke out, Social Action commissioned a field monitoring of REDD+ in Ondo State with the view of working with communities and relevant stakeholders in the State as it has been doing in Cross River State and an extension of same to Nasarawa State.
A visit to Ondo State REDD+ pilot sites revealed that REDD Readiness started in 2016 and will be ending in 2020. There are 16 forest reserves in the state according to the State REDD+ Coordinator, Mr. David Adesina and only two are being used as pilot sites with a view of expansion to other reserves. They are Osse Forest Reserve and Akure Forest Reserve. While the Osse forest is tending towards savanna, the Akure forest is a complete, thick rainforest. Following approval by the state executive council, a moratorium is placed on logging in these two forest reserves and a joint task force commissioned to enforce it.
In our interaction with the REDD Coordinator in the state, he expressed frustration that no benefit has come from REDD. He, therefore, felt reluctant to speak to communities empty-handed without bringing them financial benefits from REDD+.
After several hours of searching for the leaders in the communities making up Osse, the team was eventually directed to Owani-Idoani where they met with High Chief Akinola Olisa who, incidentally, was the second in command to the overall Chief heading all 6 communities in the Osse Forest Reserve. He informed the team during their interaction that the state promised some sort of sharing formula which will benefit the people but no immediate benefit was given. Though they were promised of some benefits that will accrue to them in the long run, what those benefits translate to has not been made clear to them.
In Obada community Akure, the team met with a community leader Adebayo Waheed who expressed the readiness of the community to work with Social Action. He took the team on a walk into the forest while he explained some activities that had taken place in the area. He said the state forest, where logging still takes place, intersects the Queen’s Plot and we could see a truck with wood leaving the forest.
Obada has Small River that connects the community to the other side of the forests reserve and the bridge is constructed with wood
Figure 2. Queen Plot, Akure Forest Reserve.
There is a forest reserve called “Queen’s Plot” located in the Obada/Akpamu forest in the Akure forest reserve connected by the bridge. It is said to be where the Queen of England commissioned the first saw-mill in Nigeria and thus reserved as a federal forest park. The historic dilapidated structure that housed the Mill at the time can still be seen there, very closed to a new building being constructed
Figure 3. The historic dilapidated structure that reportedly housed the first saw-mill commissioned by the Queen of England in Nigeria
Abandoned Projects: Citizens’ Report on Budgets of Selected States in Nigeria, 2017 is the documentation of analyses and findings from the monitoring of the implementation of the 2017 annual budgets of six selected states of Nigeria, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Kano and Nasarawa.
The report shows a continuing pattern of underwhelming spending on the social sector in 2017, even as budgeting in the states remained poor. Projects executed in previous years continued to appear in budgets as new projects while several projects that gulped large budgetary funds over the years were either roundly abandoned or never got off the ground. Budget lines continued to be vague, ill-described or ambiguously defined in budget documents hindering accountability and good governance much to the detriment of the people whose lives the projects would have impacted positively.
As an output from SocialAction’s anti-corruption efforts at the sub-national level of government in Nigeria during the year 2017, the findings of budget analyses and monitoring is a tool for further public advocacy by citizens and civil society organisations at the grassroots level.
This report contains the evaluation and monitoring of the 2016 annual budget allocations and project execution in six states of Nigeria: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Bayelsa, Nasarawa and Kano.
Figure 3. The historic dilapidated structure that reportedly housed the first saw-mill commissioned by the Queen of England in Nigeria 
