Wole Soyinka, playwright and Nobel laureate, has condemned a bill seeking to regulate water resources in Nigeria. <\/p>\n
Rejected in 2018, the national water resources bill 2020 was reintroduced by President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s administration in July, and now awaiting passage by the national assembly. <\/p>\n
The bill seeks to bring all water resources\u2013 both surface and underground, and the banks of the water sources under the control of the federal government through its agencies to be established by the bill. <\/p>\n
But reacting, Soyinka called for the deactivation of the bill. He accused Buhari and his predecessors of lacking in vision and had been unable to solve the country\u2019s least water problems. <\/p>\n
\u201cA roundly condemned project blasted out of sight by public outrage one or two years ago, is being exhumed and sneaked back into service by none other than a failed government, and with the consent of a body of people, supposedly elected to serve as custodians of the rights, freedoms and existential exigencies of millions,\u201d he said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill \u2013 bill on national water resources 2020 is designed to hand Aso Rock ABSOLUTE CONTROL over the nation\u2019s entire water resources, both over and underground. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe basic facilitator of human existence, water \u2013 forget for now all about streams of righteousness! \u2013 is to become exclusive to one centralised authority. It will be doled out, allocated through power directives from a desensitised rockery that cannot even boast of the water divining wand of the prophet Moses. If the current presiding genius \u2013 and this applies equally to ALL his predecessors without exception \u2013 had a structured vision of Nigerian basic entitlements, Nigerians would by now, be able to boast the means of fulfilling even that minimalist item of COVID-19 protocols that call for washing one\u2019s hands under running water! As for potable water, for drinking and cooking, let us not even begin to address such extra-terrestrial undertaking!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat next for the exclusive list? The rains? I declare myself in full agreement with virtually every pronouncement of alarm, outrage, opprobrium and repudiation that has been heaped upon this bill and its parentage, both at its first outing and since this recent re-emergence. It is time to move beyond denunciations however and embark on practical responses for its formal deactivation and permanent internment. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet all retain in their minds that, from the same source that preached the \u2018streams of righteousness\u2019 is encountered the promise of \u2018no more floods, the fire next time.\u2019 In any case, let the promulgators of this obscenity, high and low, understand that the placid waters they think to control unjustly and grotesquely, will turn to be Martin Luther King\u2019s \u2018mighty stream of righteousness\u2019 that will overwhelm and sweep them off their complacent, and increasingly loathsome sectarian, conspiratorial heights.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wole Soyinka, playwright and Nobel laureate, has condemned a bill seeking to regulate water resources in Nigeria. Rejected in 2018, the national water resources bill 2020 was reintroduced by President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s administration in July, and now awaiting passage by the national assembly. The bill seeks to bring all water resources\u2013 both surface and underground, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":70685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,15,2],"tags":[55144,20554,9982],"yoast_head":"\n