Water Bill: Ploy to worsen indigenous people’s suffering – Group

By Ihechukwu Sunday
A Pan Yoruba group, Think Yoruba First Worldwide, has said the resurfaced National Water Resources bill is a ploy to worsen the living condition of the indigenous people.
A joint statement by the group, which was made available to the Daily Sun, is urging Nigerians to resist the passage of the bill into law.
Part of the statement read: “As indigenes of Yorubaland, we and our unborn generations will be affected by this bill, as it is a sinister plot to gradually take away our rights completely and worsen the already terrible state of security and welfare in the Yorubaland, and indeed, all of Nigeria.
“The controversial bill was introduced in the Eighth National Assembly, causing a lot of rancour between 2017 and 2020. It has now been reintroduced to the National Assembly in June 2022 by the Chairman of House Committee on Water Resources, Sada Soli (APC, Katsina), while the country is focused on 2023 election drive. The sinister move to smuggle this bill into the assembly at the twilight of the current administration’s reign is giving every well-meaning and peace-loving citizen further reason to distrust the minds behind this bill.”
President of organization, Oladimeji Bolarinwa, insisted that the intendment of the bill is to confer ownership, control and management of surface and underground waters on the Federal Government, saying, “This would limit people’s current access to water. It would also mean that the price of water for any use will increase drastically.
“We would like to remind the Federal Government that under the principles of Federalism especially in a diverse country like Nigeria, it is only advisable for it to focus on the waters in the FCT and leave the states alone. A case study of South-Eastern Australia and Cape Town, South Africa, for example, where indigenous people live and colonialists invaded the territories, grabbing lands, water, and at last, freedom from them, serves to alert us to the dangers of non-native ownership and management of their land and water.
“Water is not only a physical substance; it is also an intrinsic part of peoples’ identity and cultural perception.
“Water for the Yoruba people constitutes a source of livelihood through fishing in our coastal communities.Osun River, Yewa River, Oba River, Ikogosi and Eerin ijesa, among others are sacred waters that are paramount in the spiritual, historical and cultural lives of the Yoruba, and are beyond what the Federal Government should try to grab. Water is life to the Yoruba, and taking away ownership of our waters by a government that doesn’t understand or operate under our cultural ideology, is an attack on the Yoruba and must be resisted,” the group said.