TheNewsGuru

Tag: Oil

  • OPEC warns about abandoning oil and gas in Africa

    OPEC warns about abandoning oil and gas in Africa

    Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said the mounting pressure to abandon oil and gas could affect the production of gas reserves in Africa.

     

    Speaking at the Nigeria Energy Forum organised by Energy and Corporate Africa, alongside the CERA Week in Houston, OPEC’s Secretary-General, Sanusi Barkindo, pointed out that discussions on climate change and energy transition were more of emotion than fact.

     

    While the continent has about 125 billion crude oil reserves and 16 trillion standard cubic meters of natural gas, Barkindo said, “this is wrong. Rational discussions need to be based on facts, hard data and science and include all stakeholders.

     

    “Additionally, we are witnessing investors, environmental lobbyists and even some corporate boards pressuring oil and gas companies and governments to pursue increasingly radical policies and initiatives that could, in the end, be more disruptive, than productive, for the global energy industry.”

     

    While the need for net-zero remained critical according to him, the massive challenges for developing countries like Nigeria must be put in context, considering the energy poverty on the continent.

     

    Barkindo said: “We need to continually keep in mind that access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is a right for all, not a privileged few, and is enshrined in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 7.

     

    “The unfortunate reality for developing countries is that a staggering 759 million people worldwide did not have access to electricity in 2019, with around 79 per cent of them located in Africa.”

     

    He explained that in Nigeria alone in 2019, only 55 per cent of the population had access to electricity and only 13 per cent had access to clean cooking fuel.

     

    According to the OPEC boss, the energy poverty numbers for Africa are stark, and Africa alone accounts for less than three per cent of global emissions.

     

    “We also need to remember in the energy poverty debate that Africa is still relatively unexplored in terms of oil and gas, bestowed with approximately 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 16 trillion standard cubic metres of natural gas.

     

    “The capacities and national circumstances of developing countries must be taken into account in all actions,” he said.

  • Why Nigeria is unable to meet OPEC quota — Sylva

    Why Nigeria is unable to meet OPEC quota — Sylva

    Chief Timipre Sylva, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, has attributed the inability of Nigeria to meet the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota to a lack of investments in the oil and gas sector.

    Nigeria’s OPEC quota is pegged at 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) but in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million bpd.

    Sylva, according to a statement by his Senior Adviser (Media and Communications) Horatius Egua, on Wednesda, spoke at a ministerial plenary, at the ongoing Ceraweek, in Houston, Texas.

    He said the speed with which international oil companies and other investors were withdrawing investments in hydrocarbon exploitation had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC target.

    According to Sylva, the rate at which investments were taken away was too fast.

    “Lack of investment in the oil and gas sector contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC quota. We are not able to get the needed investments to develop the sector and that affected us,” he added.

    He also cited security challenges as another major factor that contributed to the lack of significant growth of the sector.

    The minister added that the drive towards renewable energy by climate enthusiasts had discouraged funding for the sector.

    Sylva, however, called for a change of attitude, stressing that in decades to come, hydrocarbon would continue to play a central role in meeting the energy needs of the world.

    The minister, who is an advocate of gas as a transition fuel for Africa, said although Nigeria was in full support of the energy transition, the country, and the African continent, should be allowed to develop at its own pace.

    This, he said, would enable the continent to be able to meet the energy needs of the over 600 million people who have no access to any form of power in Africa.

    “There are about 600 million people in Africa without access to power, and of that number, the majority live in Nigeria.

    “And of the over 900 million people without access to power in the world, the majority live in Africa. So how do we provide access to power for these people if you say we should not produce gas?

    “We believe that gas is the way to go. We believe that gas is the way forward and the one access to power. For the energy transition programme to be taken seriously we need to have an inclusive energy transition programme.

    “We believe in energy transition but we as Africans have our own peculiar problems and we are saying that our energy transition should be focused on gas to bridge the energy gap.

    “This is what we have been saying. We need a just and equitable energy transition programme,” Sylva stated.

    He maintained that Nigeria was not in any way against any transition programme but urged promotion of renewable energy as the only path to energy transition to give the less fortunate countries the opportunity to achieve energy sufficiency before doing away with fossil fuel.

    “As Africans, we are saying that we must be allowed to transit through gas. We cannot achieve one energy base load through renewable alone.

    “The rest of the world must listen to us. We are happy that our point of view is being taken,” he said.

  • Whose oil is it, anyway? – By Chidi Amuta

    Whose oil is it, anyway? – By Chidi Amuta

    By Chidi Amuta

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief E.K Clark are unrepentant but useful fossils. Both suffer a common affliction: they like to hear their own voices. In their constant refrains on major national issues, they never tire of tormenting us with ancient interpretations of the country we all know. Both men share a common expired conception of Nigeria. While citizens see a good country rendered unhappy for individual fulfillment by a succession of gang rulers, these men see an amalgamation of clashing regions, tribes, factions and zones. In their worldview, each region is the home of specific resources with which they come to the national arena to negotiate political supremacy with other regions and factions. For them and their acolytes, exclusive regional and sectional resource ownership seems to be a common currency of political exchange.

    Their most recent encounter is on the matter of who really owns Nigeria’s strategic oil and gas resources. Obasanjo angered Clark by repeating the worn out line that the oil and gas resources located in the Niger Delta belong primarily to the federal government as the constitution states. Predictably, an enraged Clark rose in defense of his region, countering the Ota farmer with a more assertive ownership claim on these resources by his Niger Delta kith and kin. Between the constitutional state and the patrimonial heritage state, a line is drawn. Clark needs to enter this battle most energetically; otherwise his residual political relevance will evaporate.

    Not to be left out of this familiar regional scramble for ownership of national wealth and resources, spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, Mr. Hakeem Baba -Ahmed joined issues with both men. Let us have some ‘Federal Character’! Mr. Baba- Ahmed entered the adolescent contention that all the food eaten by Nigerians is produced in and belongs to the North. In his curious logic, Nigeria needs to show gratitude to the custodians of the nation’s food basket. Furthermore, Baba-Ahmed contends that the whole of Abuja belongs to the North which has magnanimously yielded it to the Federal government as part of its benevolent endowment to the idea of Nigeria. He then laments how most of the Abuja real estate space now belongs to ‘Southerners’.

    In this politics of regional resource compartmentalization and ownership tussles, political leaders have found a convenient berthing foothold for their many combats. In the process, they have deepened our divisions and widened our misconceptions. Politicians have a right to mine fault lines in an effort to advance their interests. But to proceed therefrom to reduce the nation to a collection of extractive colonies is intellectual fraud. It is also an insult to ordinary Nigerians who seek no more than a respectable country they can call home. To this extent, Obasanjo, Clark and Ahmed are political dinosaurs from the ancestral depths of a better forgotten version of Nigeria. Their level of discourse cannot advance democratic debate. Their relapse into an ancient political discourse of regional ownership and supremacist muscle flexing cannot lead us to a free and truly democratic Nigeria. It has nothing to do with the right of Nigerians as individual citizens to produce and distribute goods and service throughout a national common market driven by supply and demand across the nation space.

    These positions demonstrate once again the lingering attachment of Nigeria’s political leaders to a partition template. The nation becomes a collection of extractive enclaves, territories and extractive colonies, fenced off from each other by walls of political protectionism and even hate. We are held together by a political elite who have made it their life business to remind us of the resources each region is bringing to the national sharing table. Political contest among the rival elite becomes first a vicious contest over control of these resources through control of federal power. Justice and fairness in the nation is now defined in terms of which faction is getting the most benefits from its hegemonic control of power and resources. Political discourse and language becomes a clashing rhetoric of “my region is more important than yours”! “See, we have oil and you don’t! We have cattle and you don’t!. We sell spare parts and pharmaceuticals and you don’t! We just found gold in my backyard; where is yours?” etc.

    The international dollar price of whatever lies beneath your soil or grows in your backyard becomes a measure of your region’s political importance in the national order of precedence. Unconsciously, our politics has become a perennial contest over which region or zone hosts or brings the most strategic resources to the national equation.

    This is how oil and gas were alienated from resources for the improvement of people’s lives into objects of vicious political football. Communities in oil bearing areas have been weaponized against an unjust state and its military presence. Whole communities have been razed in these vicious encounters. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost. Livelihoods have been erased. Limited undeclared wars have been fought just as whole armed movements have risen with militias armed with frightening weapons of war. These have been recognized as permanent features of our armed landscape. The category ‘militant’ has emerged as a distinct class of citizens who have earned the right to be heard by their ability to aim and shoot agents of the state and other innocent citizens. “I shoot, therefore, I am” has emerged as the defining dictum of this new dangerous type of Nigerian citizen.

    Elsewhere, the politics of resource nationalism has produced another unfortunate version of the Nigerian citizen. In an attempt to elevate cattle into a strategic national resource with a political meaning, the armed herdsman and his variants of bandit, insurgent and terrorist has shaken Nigeria’s sense of security to its core. Violent trouble making has graduated into an occupation and lucrative business. The gunman (known and unknown) has come into the fore as a fact of daily life, redefining reality as we have come to know it. The elevation of senseless blood letting and violence into creeds of social existence is one of the clearest markers of the ascendancy of the type of resource politics that Mr. Muhammadu Buhari has authored. The daily news as a casualty headcount is the journalistic legacy of this season of anomie. In the process, the already hard to shock Nigerians have become inured to blood letting and a daily industrial scale loss of human lives. The rest of the world gets shocked each time they feel that too many Nigerians have died in one day. An entire school population can be carted off by transactional zealots and sectarian slave dealers in one night only for government secueity to arrive half a day later in ‘hot pursuit’.

    Obasanjo’s position is a rehash of the standard old constitutionalist argument. It simply states that by the various constitutional provisions, all mineral resources that lie under the surface of the earth belong to the federal government. The individual only has rights to property on the surface of the earth. If the state finds oil under your farmland or hut, too bad. You have to move your miserable belongings as well as the gravesites of your ancestors and the shrines that make your life meaningful. Compensation will be paid you!

    The federal government collects all the oil, gas and royalties in addition to those on other minerals under the earth. In turn, it redistributes all such national revenue to the various tiers of government in line with the applicable revenue allocation formula. Implicit in this arrangement are certain standard assumptions that go along with the classic theories of national sovereignty and the social contract between the citizen and the Leviathan. The barrage of obligations and responsibilities are familiar. Government has the responsibility to protect lives, to protect people from the environmental impacts of mineral prospecting and extraction, to provide means of livelihood for those who may be adversely affected by mineral extraction and prospection etc.

    Underlying these basic assumptions is an abstract supposition that government is bound to be just to all citizens in the provision of essential amenities; that it will protect all citizens from the possible environmental and occupational hazards of mineral exploitation and extraction. Add all the other fancy rhetorical guarantees that define the obligations of the nation state to its citizens.

    Over time, these assumptions have turned out utopian and deceptive. People in oil and gas communities have gotten poorer, pushed to the precarious edges of the existential precipice. They live in a supposedly rich country but mostly as spectators of the train of modernization and development in centres far away from the brackish backwaters of nasty resource exploitation. The political power brokers have in the past been embarrassed by the failure of this constitutional absolutism. They have tended to amend the rules. The revenue allocation formula has been tinkered with several times. Oil and gas producing states have been allowed an additional 13% revenue share. Intervention agencies like OMPADEC and NDDC have been quickly established. We have even established a separate Ministry of the Niger Delta to focus attention on the direct needs of the Niger Delta region.

    The net effect of these arrangements and interventions has been to funnel a huge quantum of resources and cash to the region. Regrettably, very little has changed in he lives and circumstances of the people. The mood of restiveness and agitation has persisted, hence the venom in the Obasanjo/Clark exchange. The politics of resource agitation has become even more weaponized and fiery.

    One offshoot of the political jostling for oil and gas resource control is the rise of the community as an active stakeholder. Both politicians and governments in power have of late come to accommodate community leaders as convenient middlemen in engagements with the people. In advancement of this angle, a coterie of community leaders consisting of chiefs, kings, dodgy intellectuals and diverse business men of no particular nomenclature has risen. The umbrella of ‘community leaders’ has been expanded to embrace all those who cannot fit comfortably as partisan political actors, militants or rights activists find shelter as community leaders. It is the collective of communities rather than the states in which they live that are asserting the strongest ownership stake of oil and gas resources. The federal state is therefore compelled by the grassroots origins of the resource control agitation to recognize and deal with community leaders as legitimate stakeholders.

    This situation poses the legal burden of establishing the legal status of communities in the property rights relationship between the federal government and individual owners of the land underneath which oil and gas exploitation takes place. We must quickly concede that the community makes cultural sense mostly in understanding the national identity of indigenous peoples. In many parts of the country, land still belongs to communities without prejudice to the provisions of the Land Use Decree and other relevant laws of the state. Therefore, the community may have a residual cultural right to press its claims on behalf of its members when ancestral land is threatened.

    But in a strict definition of citizenship in a constitutional democracy, the community hardly exists as a legal entity. In the context of the democratic bond between the citizen and the state, the community has tangential relevance. The social contract that binds every Nigerian citizen to the federal Leviathan is the essence of the Nigerian nation state. Neither ethnic group, region, zone nor community has a place in that social contract. Traditional rulers may have a cosmetic constitutional role but they must leave their communities outside the gates of power. Therefore, fairness, equity and justice in the context of the Nigerian nation state can only be defined and measured in terms of how well the state treats each citizen.

    Strictly speaking, communities have no bloc voting rights at election time. The community has no international passport, drivers license, biometric identification or voters card. Only individual citizens meet these requirements. To that extent, therefore, the oil that is under a man’s hut or farmland should belong to him as an individual with the state collecting taxes from both the land owner and the oil and gas prospecting company in proportions that may be stipulated by law and recognized by the constitution. Therefore, the persistence of injustice in the mineral producing areas especially oil and gas in the Niger Delta is the result of the failure of the state to recognize and respect individual property rights as the basis of resource appropriation.

    It is individual citizens whose farmlands are blighted and whose fishing ponds are polluted by oil spillage. It is they who suffer avoidable diseases as a consequence. It is they who end up in abject penury while the community leaders and political elite live in opulence from oil royalty compensatory funds and intervention agency contract scams. A community’s rivers may be poisoned; its farmlands may be rendered unproductive while its marine ecosystem may be wiped out. But it is at the individual level that the pain of loss and the anguish of deprivation are felt most. It is individuals who vote at elections, whose heads are counted at census and who are enumerated for compensation by oil companies. It is they whose children will not go to school or come home as heroes with wealth or positions.

    Ordinarily, then, the reluctance to recognize the individual’s property rights remains the bane of our politics of resource appropriation especially as it concerns oil and gas resources. But there is a way out. The effective partnership ought to be between first, the individuals whose property rights are infringed on by the extractive processes of oil and gas exploitation. Second would be the federal government which provides sovereign protection, guarantees and ambience for everything in the Nigerian space. The third strategic partner would be the oil companies that provides the technology and capital for the realization of the resources. In this relationship, the primary beneficiary ought to be the individual land owner. The oil and gas companies should pay royalties to the property owner while the federal government should in turn levy appropriate taxes on the individual property owners on their mineral incomes. For instance, a federal mineral tax of say 60% on individuals on whose property oil and gas are produced would be nearly fair in ensuring a reasonable degree of fairness and equity to those who bear the brunt of oil and gas exploitation. A net income of 40% of oil and gas royalties that goes directly to individual land owners should ensure some equity. The same formula should apply to other minerals. It would matter less to individual land owners in these areas what the federal, state, local governments and their numerous racket agencies do with their 60% revenue.

    Most importantly, a shift of emphasis to individual rights in designating our national wealth will rid our politics of the blackmail of regionalism. Politicians can at least get off resources that accrue to individual labour or natural endowments. This will shift the focus of our discourse to issues rather than regional entitlements. Politicians should find serious national issues to wage their fights over and get their fangs off the resources that belong to individual Nigerian citizens.

  • Niger Delta oil: Obasanjo replies Clark

    Niger Delta oil: Obasanjo replies Clark

    …change from a tribesman to a statesman of character – Obasanjo tells Clark

    …I reject your offensive words that I am inconsistent, hypocritical – Obasanjo to Clark

    … Obasanjo insists he is nobody’s lackey

    Apparently peeved by an open letter written by frontline Niger Delta leader, Chief EK Clark, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has maintained his position that in principle location of mineral resources in any part of Nigeria is valid.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Obasanjo’s reaction to Chief Clark’s letter has sparked an open confrontation between both men.

    TNG recalls that Chief Clark had in an open lambasted Obasanjo for displaying hatred towards Niger Deltans but Obasanjo in his reaction backing his position with constitutional clauses says he has no hatred for Niger Deltans but he simply stated the obvious.

    Read his full letter below:

    MY RESPONSE TO THE OPEN LETTER BY CHIEF (DR.) E. K. CLARK

    Your letter titled “My Disappointment Over Unprovoked Outburst Against The People of the Niger Delta Region” came to my attention on my return from the Horn of Africa on Christmas eve. After very careful and close study of your letter, I decided to respond to your letter also openly for general education of all and to clear some misconception and misperception on your part.

    First, my visit to you on the evening of Monday, December 13, 2021, was both a condolence and get-well-quick visit to you that had nothing to do with Bishop Sunday Onuoha meeting which I attended the following day. You should remember that I did not discuss in particular the meeting of the Committee for Goodness of Nigeria, CGN, that was coming the following day except to ask if the papers had been received by you. The brief touch on the state of the nation is the normal discussion on the situation which you rightly described as “continues to drift to very disturbing levels” that evening. Otunba Oyewole Fasawe, who was with me to your house and to all the four people I visited that night, can testify. You were one of the four people I visited. I would have. expected my social visit to be excluded from your vituperation on other matters. However, you deserved the visit and that was it.

    For me, personally, I have never shown any anger or distraught with Niger Delta Region nor with any part or Region of Nigeria. Rather, I have always picked points on leadership performance or policies and I will continue to do so. Even when a particular part of Nigeria decided not to vote for me and their leaders told me that in clear terms, I showed understanding and not anger or distraught and disabused their minds on what I believed they got wrong. And in subsequent elections, they voted for me. My records before, during and after the civil war in Niger Delta Region was without blemish and it was all goodwill to all the people of Nigeria and especially the people of the Niger Delta Region which was my theatre of operation during the Nigerian civil war.

    I could not have mentioned to you any grievances against the Niger Delta Region during my social visit because there was never anyone and there cannot be anyone. But if you take my holding a constitutional position on federalism and reiterating the position of our past Constitution – 1963 Constitution as I understand it as anger or grievance against the Niger Delta Region or Niger Delta people, that will be a very wrong position to take because until I can be legally and constitutionally persuaded otherwise, I will continue to hold my ground. And it is not a matter of emotion or threat or name-calling which do not throw light on the issue or walkout which does not strengthen any argument or debate.

    What you call outburst is my own way of calling or attracting attention. I raise my voice or stamp the desk such that those who are sleeping would have to wake up to listen to me. Even in bilateral discussion, I consciously tap the other person to ensure that I am attracting his or her attention. I have had experience that it was when the person I was talking to started snoring that I realised he was not listening to me. But if raising my voice, stamping the desk or tapping is unpleasant to anyone, I tender unreserved apology. If I interjected to either complete a statement or to correct a statement being made that I believe was not the true situation, I have no apology for that. Truth must be stated and upheld no matter how bitter it may be.

    Chief Clark, you are right to say that we have known ourselves since we were both in General Gowon’s administration in 1975. The good thing and maybe the bad one as well is that you haven’t changed much, if at all, since those days and I haven’t changed much either. You stated and displayed what you are characteristically known and noted for – Urhobo or Ijaw; and what I am characteristically known and noted for. Let me proceed with the most basic constitutional fact that you cannot have two sovereign entities within a State which is what your position of Niger Delta ownership claim of the crude oil found in that location amounts to.

    All those who purchase crude oil from Nigeria enter into contractual relationship with Nigeria not with the Niger Delta. The territory of Nigeria is indivisible inclusive of the resources found therein. No territory in Nigeria including the minerals found therein belongs to the area of location and this remains so until the federation is dissolved.

    This is the position of the Nigerian Constitution and international law. If there is a threat of violence to any part of Nigeria today including the Niger Delta it is the Nigerian military backed by any other machinery that can be procured or established at the Federal level that will respond to any such threat. In principle and practice, the position I have taken on the location of mineral resources in any part of Nigeria is the legal and constitutional position.

    May I also recall the adjunct position I proposed that equity and justice demand that those domiciled in these locations are entitled to more of the material benefits accruing from the crude oil or other minerals. At the end of the day, it may transpire that our linguistic differences on this matter are no more than semantics. And we stand on the same logic with respect to the criminal mining of gold deposits in Zamfara State today or any other State in Nigeria or any other part of Nigeria.

    Since you have selected the 1963 Constitution as your ideal guide, I will now quote the relevant Section 140 for the Nigerian public to arrive at a more informed and balanced understanding of our discourse: “The 1963 Constitution Section 140, titled “Mining Royalties and Rents”, stated thus: “(1) There shall be paid by the Federation to each Region a sum equal to fifty per cent of (a) the proceeds of any ROYALTY received by the Federation in respect of any minerals extracted in that Region; and (b) any mining RENTS derived by the Federation during that year from within that Region”.

    My dear Chief, where in this constitutional provision is it said or implied that minerals located in any part of Nigeria belongs to that location? For emphasis and to further buttress the point, the provision is even in the exclusive list – exclusively reserved to the Federal Government!

    You made the unnecessary reference to the appointment of Engr. Funsho Kupolokun as the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, but you conveniently forgot that before Kupolokun, there was Gaius Obaseki and Kupolokun served under Dr. Edmund Daukoru, who was Minister of State for Petroleum.

    I would be the last person to celebrate the civil war (a tragedy of enormous proportions). Needless to say that the war was fought in order to maintain and secure the territorial integrity of Nigeria to which the Niger Delta is integral. I leave you to second-guess what would have become the fate of the Southern minorities and your ownership claims of the crude oil located in your backyard in the event of a contrary outcome. How do we pay homage to the memory of those who gave their lives to ensure the successful outcome of the civil war including the millions who perished on either side of the war?

    This is certainly not the best of times for Nigeria and I understand and empathise with your frustrations but we must be guarded and measured in the expressions of such frustrations lest we throw away the baby with the dirty birth water.

    In para 13 of your letter, you made reference to the issue of asset sharing between Midwest Region and Western Region in the days of General Adeyinka Adebayo and General Samuel Ogbemudia to which you are an eyewitness, observer or participant. I would not hold brief for either of the two military men or for the two dissolved Regions; but if this will feature in your consideration today, I really wonder where you are getting to. There may be more than meets the eye.

    In para 15 of your letter, you tried to compare my Ota Farm with minerals under the soil which are exclusive to the Nigerian Authority as I have earlier shown. But even here, these are issues that must be explained that you wittingly or unwittingly skipped. I have a State Certificate of Occupancy, C of O, for my farmland and if any mineral is found under the ground on my farm, Federal Government will ask the State Government to revoke my C of O for overriding public interest. I could claim for development already carried out on my farmland but the Federal Government would issue licence to any company that had been allocated the right to mine the mineral. It would not matter what I grow on my farm and what development I have carried out. Compensation I could get based on assessed development that I had carried out on the farmland.

    The Constitution that affects Niger Delta Region affects Zamfara State where gold is found and if anybody at the Federal level has remised in implementing the Constitution, then that is a different matter. The gold in llesha, Osun State, and the lead in Ebonyi State, all come under the same Law and Constitution. There is no part of Nigeria whose interest is not dear to my heart. And stating in your letter that it is only the interest of the North I continuously hold dear to my heart is that type of buka gossip that, knowing you as I do since 1975, I am not surprised that you echoed.

    I have always stood for equity and justice in our Federation and, for me, tribe has to be suppressed for the state to emerge. And until the state emerges, Nigeria will not make the desired progress as tribesmen will always sacrifice state for tribe. This has always been my position and it will remain my position until I breathe my last.

    There are many important points that you easily or conveniently left out in your letter. When Tin, Columbite in Jos Plateau and Zinc in Abakaliki and Coal in Enugu were discovered in the early 1900s, the ownership was vested in the Colonial Government. Mitigating the hazards suffered by people in any mineral-producing area is legitimate and must be differentiated from the issue of ownership. The mitigation process must go for oil and gas, lead, gold, limestone for cement, etc.

    What developed Nigerian Regions in the colonial days and early post independence days were cocoa and rubber in the West, groundnut and cotton in the North and oil palm in the East.

    Your paras 18-23 are tissues of concoctions and outright distortions and lies which may be due to loss of memory on your part or misrepresentation. Let me illustrate with few examples. On resumption of office as President of Nigeria in 1999, the first meeting I held out of Abuja was a meeting on the Niger Delta Region. Without being prompted, I decided the 13% derivation that the new Constitution granted to oil-producing areas should be paid. If you have evidence of a legal action that forced me to implement it, please produce for me to see or publish it. At the meeting of December 14, 2021 although the recommendation was to go from 13% to 17% to oil -producing areas, Dr. Igali made the case for 18% and we as CGN went up to not less than 18%. Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, bill was my initiative for contribution to be made by State Governments, oil companies and Federal Government. The States lobbied the National Assembly to exclude them. They were excluded and what was passed became the law eventually and I implemented it. You seemed to know little to nothing on LNG generally including efforts made to turn Bonny LNG from three trains to seven trains and surely you are not updated on Brass LNG and I will plead with you to be better admitted on it all.

    Let me now separate Global Peace Foundation meeting of December 13, 2021 at the instance of Bishop Onuoha and where I participated from the second meeting of CGN which followed on December 14, 2021. We believe that the Conclusion and the Report of the meeting of December 14, 2021 hold the best position for realistic and pragmatic action for taking the country forward as possible actionable amendment to the Constitution before 2023 elections. Every Nigerian has rights under the Constitution. And no one should exercise his right against the right of another Nigerian. Our Report was only recommendations to those who can take action for implementation.

    If at a meeting, singly or collectively with others, you will take action to negate the outcome of another meeting of national interest and importance based on extraneous outcome on issues emanating from another meeting not directly connected with the original first meeting, then how much can anybody take you seriously as a democrat, that smirks of a dictatorship to me? Some of the languages you have deployed to describe me in your letter are offensive, uncouth and I totally and completely rejected them. I am not inconsistent, hypocritical, unstatesman and nor am I anybody’s lackey. You use your own yardstick to judge others. I fear God and I respect those who respect themselves and I hope it is about time you change from a tribesman to a statesman of character. That is what Nigeria and indeed the Region you profess to love demand of you at this stage. I believe one lesson that we all must appreciate that we have all learned in the last sixty-one years of our independence is that we all need to be civil to ourselves and occasionally put ourselves in the position of others. Bad language does not show prudence, wisdom and maturity. I hope you will think and adjust. Negotiation achieves better results than dictation. I believe that we should be reformists rather than being pedantic with leave-it or take-it attitude. Together, I also believe Nigeria can be fixed and mended for the benefit of today and tomorrow on the basis of give and take. If we all demand what we consider as our rights without yielding and with unbending stature, we will be wrong and record failure at the end of the day. Reform is a continuous exercise but relatively slow in achieving results. Revolution for sea-change may rarely happen and then we may continue to languish in frustration and regret with dire judgement of posterity.

    I wish you well and may the Year 2022 be a great year for you personally and for our country, Nigeria.

    Yours in service of Nigeria

    OLUSEGUN OBASANJO

    December 28, 2021

  • IMF upgrades Nigeria’s economic growth forecast to 2.7%

    IMF upgrades Nigeria’s economic growth forecast to 2.7%

    The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has upgraded its forecast for Nigeria’s economic growth in 2022 and 2021 to 2.7 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively, citing recovery in non-oil sectors and the rising price of crude oil.

    The IMF had earlier in April projected that Nigeria’s economy will grow by 2.3 per cent and 2.5 per cent in 2022 and 2021 respectively.

    The latest forecast was contained in the IMF’s “Regional Economic Outlook for October 2021” released yesterday at the sidelines of the ongoing Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington.

    However, the 2.7 percent growth projected by IMF for Nigeria in 2022 represents 1.5 percentage points below the 4.2 per cent growth projected for 2022 by the Federal Government in its Draft 2022 to 2024 Medium Term Fiscal Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTFF/FSP).

    “In 2022, we are expecting an uptake to 4.2 per cent, then a dip to 2.3 per cent in 2023 and up to 3.3 per cent in 2024,” said Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed at the public consultation on the Draft 2022 to 2024 MTFF/FSP.

    The IMF also projected that the Sub-Saharan economy will grow by 3.8 per in 2022 and by 3.7 per cent this year.

    The IMF said: “Nigeria’s economy will grow by 2.6 percent in 2021, driven by the recovery in non-oil sectors and higher oil prices, even though oil production is expected to remain below pre-COVID-19 levels.

    “Growth will inch up slightly to 2.7 percent in 2022 and remain at this level over the medium term, allowing GDP per capita to stabilize at current levels, notwithstanding long-standing structural problems and elevated uncertainties.”

    In its projection for the Sub-Saharan African, the IMF said: “Sub-Saharan Africa is set to grow by 3.7 percent in 2021 and 3.8 percent in 2022. This rebound is most welcome and largely results from a sharp improvement in global trade and commodity prices. Favorable harvests have also helped lift agricultural production.

    “But the recovery is expected to be slower than in advanced economies, leading to a widening rift in incomes. This divergence is expected to persist through the medium term – partly reflecting different access to vaccines, but also stark differences in the availability of policy support.

    “The outlook remains extremely uncertain, and risks are tilted to the downside. In particular, the recovery depends on the path of the global pandemic and the regional vaccination effort, and is also vulnerable to disruptions in global activity and financial markets.”

  • 77 oil, gas companies owe Nigerian government N2.7 trillion

    77 oil, gas companies owe Nigerian government N2.7 trillion

    About 77 oil and gas companies in Nigeria are indebted to the Federal Government to the tune of N2.659 trillion, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has said.

    The debt arises from the failure to remit petroleum profit tax, company income tax, education tax, value added tax, withholding tax, royalty and concession on rentals, the agency added.

    Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, NEITI Executive Secretary, announced this, on Tuesday, while briefing the media on the status of EITI implementation in Nigeria.

    He also presented the agency’s scorecard in the past seven months.

    Orji explained that the total liabilities of the 77 companies covered by the NEITI process was at the agencies’ 2019 independent audit report of the oil and gas sector.

    “The NEITI reports based on findings in its 2019 audit reports of the oil and gas sector show that oil and gas companies in Nigeria owe government about $6.48Billion which equals about Two trillion, six hundred and fifty nine billion Naira (N2.659 trn) at today’s official exchange rate of N410.35.

    “The NEITI boss pointed out that “A breakdown of the figures show that a total of $143.99million is owed as petroleum profit taxes, $1.089billion as company income taxes and $201.69Million as education tax. Others include $18.46Million and £972Thousand as Value Added Tax, $23.91million and £997Thousand as Withholding Tax, $4.357billion as royalty oil, $292.44Million as royalty gas, while $270.187Million and $41.86Million were unremitted gas flare penalties and concession rentals respectively,” he said.

    Orji stated that the disclosure is important and timely in view of the government’s current search for revenues to address citizens’ demand for steady power, access to good roads, quality education, fight insurgency and creation of job opportunities for the country’s teeming youths.

    A comparative analysis of what this huge sum of N2.65trn can contribute to economic development shows that it could have covered the entire capital budget of the federal government in 2020 or even used to service the federal government’s debt of $2.68billion in 2020.

  • Dangote Refinery partners Content Board on Oil Sector Research, Development

    Dangote Refinery partners Content Board on Oil Sector Research, Development

    Dangote Oil Refinery has thrown its weight behind the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to promote the critical issue of Research and Development (R&D) in the oil and gas sector of the country.
    To display its readiness for this promotion, Dangote Petroleum Refinery was a Platinum sponsor of the 2nd Edition of Edition of the NCDMB Research & Development Fair and Conference 2021, which took place in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State recently.
    Already, Dangote Oil Refinery has selected six graduates across the six geopolitical zones in conjunction with NCDMB to take the MSc and/or PhD programmes at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for Research & Development in Zeolites ZM5in.
    With the theme: ‘Creating Sustainable Collaboration in Research and Development for the Energy Sector’, the well-attended conference created a convergence of researchers, industry players, investors, finance enterprises and manufacturing companies to identify patentable or commercially viable products resulting from R&D activities.
    The R&D fair afforded Dangote Oil Refinery the opportunity to showcase its 650,000 barrels-per-day single largest train refinery project and what the company has done in terms of Research and Development during the construction of the refinery.
    Speaking during his visit to Dangote Oil Refinery exhibition booth at the fair and conference, Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Engr. Simbi Wabote, commended the company for showing support to the board by participating in the fair.
    He expressed the need for companies in the Nigeria oil and gas sector to start nurturing the growth of the country’s home-grown technology rather just being wholesome consumers of other people’s innovations.
    In his opening remarks, he stated, “Analysis of global practices of Research and Development revealed that the combined R&D spend of just five countries makes up 63.5% of the entire global R&D spend. These five countries, namely USA, China, Japan, Germany, and India were also observed to have accounted for over 50% of the global Gross Domestic Products.
    “Africa, on the other hand, accounted for less than one per cent (1%) of the global R&D spend while its GDP is only 3% of the global GDP. You will agree with me that there is a nexus between the spend on Research and Development and economic prosperity,” the Executive Secretary added.
    Wabote said from time immemorial to the current age of global connectivity, R&D always played a crucial role in opening up new chapters of modern life.
    He listed some of the accomplishments of the board to include the establishment of the Nigerian Content Research and Development Council to advise the Board on matters relating to research and development in the oil and gas industry and the Development of R&D 10 Year Strategic Roadmap.
    The minister, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, also called on industry stakeholders and youths across the country to take advantage of the NCDMB R&D centre to bolster adaptation of existing solutions and also come up with new ones to address major challenges in the industry.
    The Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, represented by his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, said the theme for the fair captures stakeholders’ collective commitment to aggressively drive innovation and position the oil industry on the path of an integrated energy sector, where field development and production solutions are sourced through local capabilities.
    He emphasised the need for private sector operators to invest in research and development. “It is important, however, to clear up a certain misconception: The funding of research is not the sole responsibility of National Governments; rather, big spenders on research and development globally come from the private sector,” he added.

    Beyond financial intervention, he urged the oil and gas industry players to challenge the local academia with its research problems, to ensure the development of homegrown technology and the retention of oil and gas spend in the economy.

  • Ogoni stakeholders state conditions for resumption of oil exploration

    Ogoni stakeholders state conditions for resumption of oil exploration

    Ogoni ethnic nationality stakeholders in Rivers State have highlighted conditions for resumption of oil exploration activities in the area.

    The stakeholders on Sunday said they would not allow the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) or another company to resume oil exploration in the town without due consultations with them.

    They also raised the alarm over resurgence of cult killings in the area.

    The stakeholders lamented the visit of NPDC to the area without official notice.

    Emmanuel Deeyah, the President of KAGOTE, the apex socio-cultural organisation in Ogoni comprising the four councils of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, flayed NPDC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC), for visiting Ogoni without following the right channel.

    He decried the recent cult-related violence that had claimed many lives in the area and called on security operatives to arrest and prosecute any cultist caught with a firearm in Ogoni.

    He said: “Lately, in Ogoniland, we have had this issue of cult-related killings, so we have come to say enough is enough.

    “We are talking with the relevant security agencies so that henceforth anyone caught shooting even crackers they should visit such person with the full weight of the law. They should do everything within their powers to apprehend such persons”.

    Deeyah said while the people were pondering on how to tackle insecurity in the area, they were again inundated with the report of the visit of NPDC and the company’s planned resumption of oil exploration.

    The Ogoni leader insisted any company that intended to explore oil in the area must meet with critical stakeholders, chiefs and opinion leaders, adding that Ogoni was not ready to make the same mistakes it made in the era of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

    Deeyah said: “The truth about it is that nobody in Ogoni owns the means of the facility to mine oil. We belong to the federation, that is, Nigeria and we are also bound by the laws of the country.

    “We can’t decide which company comes and which will not come. But we have a long history when it comes to oil exploration.

    “We believe that if the government is desirous of mining oil in Ogoniland, it should consult. There should be a process dialogue with the people.

    “We have our son, Senator Magnus Abe, who is on the board of NNPC, the parent company of NPDC. He is not in the picture of this development.

    “We also have Senator Bari Mpigi, also an indigene and others they are not in the picture of this development.

    “Those people who claim to come from NPDC, do they actually come from Nigeria? Don’t they come from places?

    “We even have a local government chairman on ground; we have never heard that any of the council chairmen was involve in any of those processes.”

    Deeyah disowned Ogoni Liberation Initiative, (OLI), the organisation that championed the visit of NPDC, saying the body did not have the mandate to speak for Ogoni people.

    He said: “I will like to say that the OLI as they call them don’t have the legitimate mandate to invite any group to come and mine oil in Ogoniland, and we want to say to them that henceforth they should stop all such activities.

    “In the next few days, we are going to call a broad-based meeting of Ogoni people of all seeds of opinion so that we chart the way forward. It is in that meeting we are going to agree on what we expect.

    “We rejected Shell, so if another organisation is going to come, we should know what others things they are going to do better than Shell.”

  • Attacks on oil, gas facilities drop from 623 to 94 in seven years – Minister

    Attacks on oil, gas facilities drop from 623 to 94 in seven years – Minister

    The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipreye Sylva, on Monday declared that attacks on oil and gas facilities across the country had reduced significantly since 2014.

    The minister made the declaration at a Town Hall meeting on Protecting Oil and Gas Infrastructure in Abuja, on Monday.

    Sylva, who was represented by Mr Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), identified the main reasons why increasing production remained challenging.

    “First is under investment, you may genuinely not be able to put your money into it and secondly, you may have the money and not be able to due to activities of vandals, which can actually stop you from increasing your production.

    “This is a challenge in our environment. However, I can confirm to you that it is not all bad news, because from 2015 to today, we have a calmer Niger Delta.

    “We have far less issues on vandals action on our facilities than our access; that means the impact of attacks on our facilities has significantly reduced,” he said.

    Sylva stressed that this did not happen suddenly, but were the outcomes of a number of engagements both at national and sub national levels, including with members of the Armed Forces.

    He said there were significant collaborations among the agencies of government and security outfits in the country that helped in checking the activities of vandals.

    Sylva further identified two types of vandals – those who are genuinely aggrieved and seen to be in activism and those who do it for the purpose of stealing – both of whom constituted a national problem.

    “In 2014, we have 623 attacks on our pipelines; today in 2021, we only have 94 attacks.

    “Once there are attacks on our facilities, it pollutes the environment, create new set of problems for us and we stop worrying about revenue and worry about the environment.

    “This is because some of them are innocent and can’t find clean water to drink and can’t go to their farms.

    “The issue of attacks on oil and gas facilities is a concern to all of us because it affects all of us and we can do something by communicating appropriately,” Sylva said.

  • Isoko/Urhobo Unity Forum looking beyond oil, to focus on entertainment, tourism for economic integration of both ethnic groups

    Isoko/Urhobo Unity Forum looking beyond oil, to focus on entertainment, tourism for economic integration of both ethnic groups

    By Emman Ovuakporie
    Sensing the dangers ahead the Isoko and Urhobo Unity Forum, after brainstorming last Saturday resolved to look beyond oil and gas and focus on the entertainment/tourism industries for economic emancipation of both nationalities.
    TheNewsGuru.com, (TNG) reports the oldest ethnic groups in Delta position on how to look beyo d oil and re-engineer the focus of both nationalities as oil is a resource that cannot be recouoed but both entertainment and tourism if prooerly developed will stand the test of time.

    Both ethnic groups also thinkered on the possibility of massive production of onions due to the recent threat by the Onion Producers and Marketers Association of Nigeria to stop the supply of onions to the Southern part of the country, Urhobo/Isoko nationalities of Delta State have been charged to take advantage of the opportunity of the threat to integrate and go into the cultivation of some of the food items supplied to the Southern part of the country from the North.

    Giving this charge on Saturday on the occasion of Urhobo/Isoko Unity Forum Conference held at the PTI Conference Centre, Effurun, Delta State, the President-General of Isoko Development Union, IDU, Prof. Christopher Akpotu, who spoke on the topic, “Urhobo/Isoko Economy, Ways We Can Thrive Together”, said that the two ethnic nationalities must engage in economic integration and turn the North’s threat to ban food supply to the South into opportunity to venture in the cultivation of onions and rearing of cattle.

    Akpotu stated that technology has simplified agriculture to the extent that grasses can be grown at homes for the feeding of cattle just as onions could be grown in most parts of Urhobo and Isoko lands.

    He said: “Just some days ago or some weeks ago, the Onions Sellers Association of Nigeria and the Cattle Rearers Association of Nigeria, made a threat declaration that if we are not careful with our utterances that we make, there will be no onions and cattle in the southern part of Nigeria.

    And when that threat came up it was treated with triviality in the ordinary Nigerian way. For me as a strategist and an entrepreneur, it was an opportunity for us. I never looked at this issue from a trivial perspective. Urhobo/Isoko, I charge you today, our economic integration is going to start from planting onions. Our economic integration is going to start from rearing cattle.

    “In recent times, technology has taken us to the extent where we can grow grasses in labs; we can grow grasses in our homes even more than what is grown outside. If that be the case, then there will be no need for anybody to threaten us that you are withdrawing cattle from us.

    “We will economically integrate here and we will be able to produce enough cattle to market to the entire sub-region. And we will do it in a most scientific manner.”

    Akpotu also disclosed that the proposed economic integration between the Urhobo and Isoko can also be developed by exploring into the field of entertainment and tourism in the area, adding that it is time for Urhobo/Isoko to think less about oil.

    He noted that the entertainment industry contributes several trillion of dollars in GDP to the American economy, adding that Isoko and Urhobo have abundant talents who are holding sway in the entertainment business.

    “Our focus should not be on oil. In a season where the world is beginning to discuss on entertainment, we shouldn’t be talking about oil. At a time the former American President, Jimmy Carter, charged Americans to explore the entertainment world. And that was why in the days of Michael Jackson of blessed memory, when he came up with the track “Thriller”, the American President as it were, said, “This is an American dream come true”.

    “The entertainment industry is a massive sector. If you discuss Hollywood in America, the contribution of Hollywood to the GDP of American economy in the California area runs into trillions of dollars. And if we are able to harness the several talents we have in the entertainment industry, the economic integration among the Urhobo and Isokos will be an interesting one”, he said.

    Citing the success story of the economic integration of the European nations which metamorphosed into the European Union, EU, Akpotu further charged Urhobo/Isoko to identify the areas of comparative advantages that will make the two ethnic nationalities to become a leading economy not only in Nigeria, but in the world.

    He also dwelt on the abundant tourist attractions within Urhobo and Isoko nation, citing the Ethiope River and the site where Bible was believed to have fallen from the sky in Araya, Isoko South Local Government Area in 1914.

    Earlier, the convener of the Urhobo/Isoko Unity Forum Conference, Deacon Chris Iyowaye, had reiterated the vision of the Forum to reinvigorate the unity that had existed between the two ethnic nationalities, stressing that there is the need to re-emphasize the things that bind the Urhobo and Isoko together at this critical time.

    Iyowaye who spoke on the topic “Urhobo/Isoko – Unity, our Bond”, traced the age-long cordial relationship between the Isoko and Urhobo, adding that the baton of unity handed to the new generation of Urhobo and Isoko people should not be allowed to drop.

    In a nutshell, there is always reason to agree to disagree or disagree to agree. Urhobo/Isoko people by nature are not just YES men! We critically evaluate issues, by seeking diverse opinions, thoroughly exhaust alternatives, re-evaluate modify before reaching a general consensus. We neither believe nor subscribe to “Winner Takes All” mindset.

    “In conclusion, we implore therefore, that once we as individuals and, as a collective begin the practice of subordinating our personal interest for the over all interest of our people, we shall behold more of the things we share in common as against those divisive and retrogressive tendencies which are the stops to our togetherness and harmonious coexistence.

    “Therefore, the existing baton of unity handed to us from the previous generations must not drop as we prepare to handover same to the next generation”, he said.

    Also speaking at the occasion, the President-General of the Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, Olorogun Moses Taiga emphasized the bond between the Urhobo and Isoko, adding that both nationalities were one over the years.

    The UPU PG who was represented by the Deputy President-General, Chief Anthony Onoharigho, Ph.D, said that the Isoko people have a common heritage with the Urhobo, pointing out that there is a strong bond and affinity between both tribes.

    He said: “There is a very long bond and affinity between the Isoko people and the Urhobo. We are a people of common heritage. The fact is incontrovertible and is not a subject of debate. Indeed, the two nations have virtually everything in common.

    “Today, we are looking at working together. Every Isoko man and Urhobo man are one. Isoko and Urhobo have never been involved in a combat. Let us not bring those things that divided us. Isoko and Urhobo have to work towards getting things done.”

    Former labour leader, Chief Frank Kokori, while speaking, also emphasized the unity that had existed between the Urhobo and Isoko in the past, stressing that it is wrong for some person to dig out what divided the two ethnic nationalities, but rather they should seek what bind them together.

    Speaking to The New Diplomat, on the essence of the forum, one of the organizers of the conference, Hon. Gibson Akporehehe stated that it was for the two ethnic nationalities of Urhobo and Isoko to forge unity.

    Akporehehe confirmed that the Urhobo/Isoko Unity Forum is non-partisan, adding that it is the vision of the Forum to continue to work for the unity of the two ethnic nationalities beyond 2023.

    According to him, where there is the need to seek for a credible and qualified person for any position, the group would work without political and ethnic sentiment, adding that it will be guided by the principle of merit.

    Present at the ceremony were a cross section of kings from Urhobo and Isoko nations, Presidents-General of various communities from Isoko and Urhobos amongst women and youths from across the two nationalities.