The news, early this week, that President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to assent to the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) and has returned it to the Senate, struck me like a thunderbolt, not because it shattered my professional forecast that the bill will come into force before the end of this administration, but because it has set back the petroleum industry reform by at least two years. Some industry watchers had ruled out the possibility of the president assenting to that bill based on his body language since the bill was sent to him few months back but I found myself always defending him on the ground that signing such bill requires thorough review and the president has not exactly been around in the last few months. At every occasion the discussion came up, I always argued – almost lonely – that the president will sign the […]