Protesters on Sunday opposed the bill to establish the National Commission for the Decommissioning of Oil and Gas Installations, 2024.
The protest came barely 48 hours after the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited also opposed the bill
The bill seeks to establish a dedicated agency to oversee the dismantling, removal, and restoration of oil and gas installations at the end of their productive life cycles.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the leader of the protesters and Executive Director of the Energy Reforms Advocates of Nigeria, Abba Henry, described it as “a poisoned dagger aimed at the heart of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).”
“Nigeria is broke. Our debt is choking us. Yet some senators want to birth a brand-new commission that will swallow billions just to watch old pipes rust.
“We already have NUPRC and NMDPRA. They have the staff, the laws, the labs, and the muscle to decommission any platform from Bonny to Forcados.
“Why create a third referee when the field already has two,” he added.
He warned that NC-DOGI will only breed confusion, scare investors, and open fresh pipelines for corruption.
“One agency will approve the plan, another will supervise the cutting, and the third will fight over who collects the contractor’s kickback. Investors hate chaos.
“They will simply take their dollars to Ghana,” Abba said.
He reminded reporters that the PIA, signed only four years ago after twenty years of labour, is still settling.
“The ink is still wet. Don’t tear the book to add a new chapter nobody asked for”, he said.
ERAN unveiled a four-word battle cry—“KILL THIS BILL”—and promised to flood the National Assembly gates with petitions, live-stream town halls in every oil community from Eket to Yenagoa, and drag the bill to court if it smells passage.
“Nigerians are awake. We will name and shame every senator who votes for this money-guzzler. History will record their greed,” the director vowed.
PUNCH Online reported that the National Commission for the Decommissioning of Oil and Gas Installations Bill, 2024, has been met with widespread opposition from key industry stakeholders.
At a recent public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, the NUPRC Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, and the NNPCL all rejected the proposal.
In a statement signed by NUPRC’s Head of Corporate Communications, Eniola Akinkuotu, the commission stressed that existing provisions under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 already cover decommissioning and abandonment responsibilities, making a new commission redundant and potentially disruptive.
Proponents of the bill, however, argue that a dedicated body is necessary to ensure environmental safety and to prevent abandoned oil infrastructure from posing ecological risks, especially in the Niger Delta.
But government officials insist the PIA already provides a “comprehensive legal and institutional framework” for such oversight, warning that an additional agency could lead to regulatory overlap and waste of public resources.
Lokpobiri, in his submission, maintained that the bill would not solve any community-related issues and could instead stall the momentum of renewed investments currently being recorded in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector under the Tinubu administration.
