President Buhari signs Petroleum Industry Bill into law

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 2021 that was recently passed by the National Assembly.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, on Monday, August 16, 2021, in Abuja.

The key objective of the PIB is to overhaul and transform the Nigerian oil gas industry. For the past 20 years, there have been various attempts at reforming the industry. However, none of these efforts has yielded any tangible result until the introduction of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 2020.

Adesina said that the President assented to the bill on Monday, August 16, while undergoing quarantine, after his return from the UK, in fulfilment of his constitutional duty.

“The ceremonial part of the new legislation will be done on Wednesday, after the days of mandatory isolation would have been fulfilled,”  the statement partly read.

The Petroleum Industry Act provides legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian petroleum industry, the development of host communities, and related matters.

The Senate had passed the bill on July 15 and the House of Representatives followed suit on July 16, thus ending a long wait since the early 2000s.

Amaka E. Nliam/ Nairametrics