Efio-Ita Nyok|22 September 2017
A Nigerian social commentator, Simon Utsu, has frowned at the ongoing exploration for crude oil in the Sokoto Basin after failed and wasteful attempts in the Chad Basin.
Utsu's analysis seem to harp on the defects of Nigeria's federalism as he observed that the FG is deeming its hands into revenue generated from south southern, south eastern and south western geopolitical zones to embark on a perceived fruitless venture in the north east, north west and north central geopolitical axis of the country. He further took a swipe at the poor outing of Buhari at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly at New York.
His words, 'after heading to the Chad basin in the northeast and spending 30 billion Naira to explore for non-existent crude and sacrificing the lives of over a dozen oil workers after exposing them to Boko Haram terrorists, you're heading to the Northwest to kick-start another exercise in futility and squander extra tens of billions (Naira) of tax payers money in the process? Hmm…and these monies are from taxes generated in Lagos in the southwest and Oil and Gas activities in the southeast and southsouth.
'And to make matters worse, whilst the leaders of other African giants are busy strengthening their bonds with their Asian counterparts at the UNGA, Buhari has made sealing deals with leaders of core Arab nations his primary focus in New York —and by so doing, further ignited the pre-2015 election fears several Nigerians had of him coming to Islamize a religiously polarised country like Nigeria.
'No past administration has performed this bad and I'm 1000% sure no future one will beat the record of incompetence, rudderlessness, divisiveness and failure set by this Buhari led administration', Utsu concluded.
Recalled that Vanguard had reported that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Wednesday, said it has extended its search for crude oil to the Sokoto Inland Sedimentary Basin.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Maikanti Baru, stated this when he received a delegation from Sokoto State, led by the Governor, Aminu Tambuwal in Abuja.
GMD Baru was reacting to an appeal by the Sokoto governor, calling on the NNPC to activate oil and gas exploration campaign in the Sokoto Basin with a view to establishing the volume and value of hydrocarbon deposits there. He stated that the NNPC, without any prompting, had embarked on professional exploration of all inland basins in the country including the Sokoto basin. Baru disclosed that that the NNPC had already procured aeromagnetic data on the Sokoto basin from the Nigerian Geophysical Survey as well as awarded contract for the mapping and procurement of apt samples to further the understanding of the area Vanguard reported. He added that the NNPC had contracted its subsidiary, Integrated Data Services Limited, IDSL to carry out various geochemistry investigation to boost the gathering and integration of all relevant data ahead of the planned procurement of seismic 2D data position which would in turn determine various prospects Vanguard noted.
On May 2017, Group Managing Director of NNPC, Alhaji Maikanti Baru, said plan to commence oil exploration in the Lake Chad Basin had already been concluded.
Baru said the arrangement to resume oil exploration was reached after an assurance was received from the military to provide adequate security even after relative peace had returned to the area with the degrading of the militant group, Boko Haram. In the May reports, Baru said oil exploration, with all these arrangements, would commence in the next six months.
But, Boko Haram hasn't been degraded. It's seems Utsu's fears and suspicion are founded. The present administration seems to be pursuing an indented interest.
Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger, the Editor & Publisher of NegroidHaven
