The Ijaw Youth Council [IYC] and Urhobo Monitoring and Development Group [UMDG] have ridiculed President Muhammadu Buhari over his directive to search for oil in North.
The groups disclosed this while reacting to the presidential directive to search for oil in North.
It said it was a good initiative but came at a wrong time.
For the second time in three weeks, President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] to explore for oil in the North.
This time, the President directed the national oil firm to commence exploration activities in the Benue Trough.
[The Benue Trough is a major geological formation underlying a large part of Nigeria, extending about 1,000km North-East from the Bight of Benin to Lake Chad.]
The IYC, an umbrella body for the Ijaw youths worldwide, said that the timing for the directive was wrong.
That is because of the prevailing situation in the oil industry at the international market, which made such a venture economically unwise.
A statement signed by the spokesman for the group, Eric Omare, said one would have expected that President Buhari-led government should focus on diversifying the nation’s ailing economy, especially areas where the different regions had comparative advantage over the other.
“Ordinary, the IYC would be excited by not just a Presidential directive to explore for oil in any part of the North but discovery of oil in the North.
“This is so because we strongly believe that the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta region for equitable distribution of oil money would become a reality once oil is found in the North as well.”
On its part, the National President of the Urhobo Monitoring and Development Group, Kingsley Oberuruaria, posited that the directive was good.
However, it was a self-serving step to further annihilate the people of the region from benefitting from its God-given natural resources.
Oberuruaria explained that the desire of the President was to cut the region out of the country’s scheme of things.
That will commence once oil production fully came alive in that region while the Niger Delta, which had been feeding the nation, would forever be neglected.
The Niger Delta youth leader posited that such a presidential directive should be put into various ailing industries in the country such as the Delta Steel Company in Aladja, Delta State.
These, he said, was capable of employing hundreds of thousands of unemployed Nigerian youths.
“I’m sure this directive was as a result of the prevailing crisis in the Niger Delta region.
“President Buhari has been looking for ways to cut off the region instead of being resolute to develop the region which has been neglected by every successive government,” he said.
The Project Director, Uquo Gas Field Development, a joint venture project by Frontier Oil Limited and Seven Energy, Mr. Abdullahi Bukar, described the renewed efforts towards exploring for oil in the Benue Trough and Chad Basin as a very good development.
He said, “I hope that a well-thought-out policy will be put in place because anything that will increase Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves is very welcome.”
The Chief Executive Officer, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, said the discovery of oil in Niger Republic must have been a major boost for Nigeria to continue to prospect for oil in the Sahel region.
Describing the effort to diversify the nation’s oil and gas production as a good move, he said:
“It depends on the level of resources being committed to it.
“I think it is something the government needs to be very circumspect in committing resources to it.
“It is very likely that what would be achieved in the Chad Basin will be marginal deposits.
“So, I don’t think the government is going to be too bullish in terms of the resources it is going to commit to such effort.”
The Director-General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, Prof. Akpan Ekpo, said:
“There is nothing wrong in getting more oil.
“But my worry is the dependence on non-renewable resources without adding value to it.”
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