Nigeria: Energy Expert Criticizes Misuse of Oil Wealth
An Energy Consultant, Dr. Arinze Agbim has criticized the federal government for its failure to use oil and gas wealth to improve the living standard of the people and the economy.
Agbim who spoke last week in a paper titled “Nigerian Petroleum Industry and the Sustainable Development Challenge: Making Poverty History”, presented at the Centre for Petroleum 4th Industry Public Symposium, regretted that the thrust of successive governments in the country has always centred on increasing production and reserves.
He added that in furtherance of this goal, governments in the country have always offered players in the oil and gas industry attractive incentives to encourage them to boost reserves and production.
“The weakness in govern-ment’s policies lies in the implied assumption that increases in oil production and reserves in gas development activities necessarilly translate into benefits for the country’s wider economy and for the people.We even have energy poverty as can be seen by the frequent queues for fuel, including kerosene and petrol”.
The consultant said that the development has in recent time fuelled armed robbery, assasinations, ethnic and religoius fanaticism, intolerance as well as killings and kidnapping of oil workers in the country.
According to him, “I believe that the challenge facing government policy makers today in the Nigerian upstream oil and gas industry is not only how to increase reserves, produce more oil, or encourage a larger oil and gas industry.The challenge must include how to make the country’s oil wealth relevant to more prople by making it the engine to stimulate employment and growth in the country”.
Agbim who called for stronger and persistent efforts of the government to develop infrastructure in the country, further advocated renewed attention on education and development of skills to ensure the country’s growth in the next 30 years.
“A well trained mind is the key for ensuring that future generations will see to it that the gross mistakes in political,social and economic governance of the past are not repeated again and again and that our children and grand children will not tolerate the indiscipline and lopsided value system that have characterized today’s dispensation”, he said.
Executive Director, Community Development Partners [CODEP], Dr. Precoius Emelue who also spoke on the theme “The Nigerian Petroleum Industry and the Sustainable Development Challenge:Building Lasting Linkages” advised the federal government to abrogate all obnoxoius laws that margi-nalise people on whose lands resources are found.
The Director who expressed this against the backdrop of increased agitation of the people of Niger Delta for resource control,further tasked multinationals and oil and gas companies in the country to promote environmental sustainability so as to preserve the means of livelihood of affected communities.
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