These are hard and harsh economic times for Nigeria. A culture of waste, indiscipline, mindless corruption as well as lack of planning and vision on the part of the leadership at all levels has made the country a helpless victim of the current drastic fall in the international price of crude oil. Most state governments are unable to pay workers’ salaries and meet other obligations while millions of Nigerians sink deeper into poverty. Yet, despite this inclement situation, there is cause to keep hope alive in the possibilities of a bright future for Nigeria.
The revelation, for instance, by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Ibe Kachikwu, that the Federal Government is set to commence drilling activities for crude oil in the Chad Basin from the third quarter of this year is good news in hard times.
With the decisive curtailing of the insurgency in the North East that had stalled the project, the minister explained that “a total of 1,962 square kilometres have been acquired and processed, interpretation is currently ongoing at about 90 per cent completion and drilling activities will commence by the last quarter of 2016”. Some of the benefits to accrue to the country from this development, according to the minister, is to increase the nation’s oil and gas reserves, enhance the hydrocarbon potential of the Nigerian inland basin, as well as creating new investment and employment opportunities.
Equally heart-warming is the news that Lagos State is set to join the league of oil-producing states in the country. The wholly indigenous owned Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited and operator of the Aje field located in Oil Mining Lease 113 offshore Lagos has announced commencement of crude oil production from the field. After over 25 years of exploratory, appraisal and development activities, the final hook-up procedures are reported to be in progress with a view to bringing the wells into production very soon. The Aje field reportedly has a production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day and storage capacity of 750,000 barrels.
Despite the present fall in the price of crude oil in the world market, petroleum and gas will continue to play a key role in the global economy and will remain pivotal to Nigeria’s economy. Yet, these discoveries of petroleum resources in the North and Lagos should not stem our determination to diversify the economy and drastically reduce the country’s overdependence on oil revenues. The lesson should also not be lost on us that it is not really the revenues derived from oil that matters as much as our ability to productively and creatively utilise such funds to expand and modernise infrastructure as well as promote development and prosperity.
Equally critical is the need to address fundamentally the concentration of the ownership and control of mineral resources in the Federal Government. This kind of unitary practice is a mockery of fiscal federalism and constitutes a major obstacle to the economic liberation and development of Nigeria. Apart from petroleum and gas, there are several other valuable mineral resources in virtually all states of the federation that are simply idle and untapped wealth because the states lack the constitutional authority to exploit such resources. It must be noted though that additional sources of revenue can only be beneficial to the vast majority of Nigerians if the current astronomical scale of corruption in the country is drastically curbed.
This is why all patriotic Nigerians must fully support the present administration’s war against corruption.
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