Environmental Rights Action, Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) has accused Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole and oil companies of stalling efforts to reduce gas flaring.

At a meeting of the group in Abuja, Head of Legal Resources and Democracy Outreach of ERA, Barrister Chima Williams, said despite serious environment and health hazards posed by gas flaring, members of the House of Representatives have refused work on the Gas Flaring Prohibition and Punishment bill.

According to him, oil companies are seriously lobbying the House into believing that the bill is not beneficial to the ruling class because it would reduce income generation, adding that that is not true, as they are only looking for cheap means of exploiting host communities depite the continued degradation of the environment.

"It is disheartening that the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has reviewed their own version of the Gas Flaring Prohibition and Punishment Bill since 2009 but the House of Representatives has failed to review their own version of the bill making it impossible for harmonization.

"This means that we cannot have a bill because the house has created a scenario where all the resources, time and energy committed into the making of the bill by the Senate would end up as waste and this is not good for Nigeria," he explained.

Project Officer and Head of ERA's Niger Delta Resource Center, Alagoa Morris, called on environmental stakeholders to intensify efforts of enlightenment among oil companies' host communities on how to protect their rights and environment.