We will reject illegally revived  Water Bill –SMBLF

Besides Soyinka,  groups including the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, rejected the water bill and advised communities to demand explanations from their representatives in the National Assembly.

It called on all the communities opposed to the bill which it said was  meant to “grab land around waterways for cattle herders to use,”   to organise community special sittings for their representatives to explain the meaning of the latest move and their roles in  it.

A co-spokesman of the SMBLF, Yinka Odumakin, in an interview with The PUNCH, said, “Freedom-loving Nigerians should be ready for protracted resistance to this move to grab land around waterways for Miyetti Allah by the executive arm of the government.”

On its part, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation  said the bill would not only be rejected again but would also challenged for its legality.

The National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga who spoke with one of correspondents, said that “It is a tinder box that must certainly explode if they choose to embark on such a precipitous peregrination”.

Prince Achi-Okpaga said, “There is no gain saying that the implication is as envisaged that the Federal Government will acquire the  water ways from the people and keep the same at the disposal of unwelcome visitors or aliens;  a clear, unfair and natural case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.“When Nigerians fail to resist such ungodly act the next would be an Act to take our compounds from us so that we begin to operate in oblivion.”