AfricCon NewsAfricCon Latest Nigerian Report: With poverty in the North, Nigeria ’ll never have peace - Senator AdeyemiAfriccon Media, Nigeria
Senator Smart Adeyemi is the chairman of the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and vice-chairman of the Northern Senators’ Forum.
He speaks with DAPO FALADE on a bill he is sponsoring seeking to establish an agency that will be responsible for the discovery and exploration of oil in Northern Nigeria, among other issues. Excerpts:
YOU are sponsoring a bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of the National Frontier Exploration Agency.
Why do you think we need such an agency now that the government is trimming down the numbers of agencies?
The agency will promote and oversee exploration activities in the inland sedimentary basins and for other related matters.
We need fair balancing in the economic base of the country.
I find it unexplainable that oil is in the neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Libya on the northern border.
I hold the view that oil is in Northern Nigeria.
If there is proper exploration, we will discover oil in the North.
Remember the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo, went to Kaduna last year and said 70 per cent of poor people in Nigeria are in the North.
It shows that Nigeria will not have peace with this lopsidedness.
Therefore, we must equally put in place machinery that will guarantee that every part of the country can be part of that privilege.
We must do that because if we don›t have an agency in place, you will create the impression that some people don›t want the North to work or they feel that northerners should remain in poverty.
And if the northerners remain in poverty, they too will not sleep with their two eyes closed.
So, it pays all Nigerians to put the agency in place so that the agency will start to work and I know that God is not a wicked God that will make one part of the country to have oil and the other part not to have.
If other countries in the desert have oil, I don’t think oil would not be in Northern Nigeria; I cannot comprehend that.
I hold the view that once this agency starts working, it will discover oil in that region and it will also minimise the misconception that some parts of Nigeria are not useful or are barren.
Every part has enormous resources and oil is not limited to the Niger Delta region alone.
What is the implication of oil discovery in other parts of the country?
It means every part will have its contribution to the centre table; it may not be the same quantity but definitely there will be something because the one they discovered in Kogi State is a good development and a pointer to the fact that there is oil in the North.
And when you look at the terrain of Chad, Niger and Cameroon, we in the North are even better positioned than those countries that have oil today.
When you look at the map, Nigeria is located at the bottom; so there is high possibility of getting oil in the North.
I don›t have to be a geologist but common sense can tell you so.
If you read the book by the late Dr Yussuf Bala Usman, “The Misconception in Nigeria”, in which he came up with a theory that scientists have proved that the accumulation of particles over the centuries give room for oil; if that is true, these particles moved downward from the Sahara down to the ocean.
So by that theory I came to the conclusion that there is oil in the North.
We must have this agency that will have budgetary allocation annually to make sure that every part of the country is contributing.
Nobody should have reservation about this agency because it will serve the whole country; it will increase our foreign earnings and, above all, it will increase allocations to states where oil will be discovered in the future and improve the standard of living of the people as we are seeing in the Niger Delta states.
I don›t have anything against them but others should be helped to join them too.
The agency will carry out thorough oil exploration in all the basins; there will be unity and peaceful co-existence because there will be no need for anybody to envy the other.
There will be mutual respect for every state.
Today, when you compare the allocation to non-oil producing states and the Niger Delta states, the margin is high.
Let us create the enabling environment for them to contribute also.
It seems Nigeria is contended with what we have in the Niger Delta and it is because there is no agency that is accountable for the responsibility of the exploration.
The political economy has a lot of implications for us.
But there is a provision for such a unit in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which will be in the proposed National Oil Company (NOC).
Are you not contended with that?
I speak as the vice-chairman of the Northern Senators’ forum and I am saying that is not enough for us; it is not convincing enough.
We need an agency that will be solely responsible for that.
The department is under a supervisor but it should stand on its own and will be held responsible and accountable for that.
A department may not be funded but an agency must be funded form the Federation account.
Don’t forget that in years past, there was no attempt to carry out a more detailed exploration in Alkaleri, Bauchi State and the possibility is still very high that it seems to have been abandoned.
But with enough budget provisions, we will get there.
There was a provision for such in the first bill forwarded to the Senate by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and it was said the Presidency reduced it to a mere unit as a bargain with 10 per cent Host Community Fund for Niger Delta.
Will you agree with such a bargain for your bill to scale through?
Against the background of comments and the situation in which we have found ourselves in Nigeria today, we are of the strong view that we need this agency. It will end the lip service being paid to oil exploration.
The Host Community Fund is still a very serious matter that we will deliberate upon.
The argument they are pushing forward is that the 10 per cent will be coming from the oil companies after tax.
That, we will investigate; we are going to take a position on it very soon; we will let the public know during the public hearing on the PIB that, as lawmakers, we take positions of various stakeholders and the interest of the nation will come first.
But this agency ought to have been operational more than 30 years ago because in a federal system of government, we appreciate the fact that states have some leverages over resources in their domain.
But the nation must equally provide the enabling environment for others to grow and realise their potentials too.
If Niger, Chad and Cameroon can have oil, it is very impossible for one to believe that there is oil in the North.
So to break the jinx, let’s put this agency in place and watch the drivers and know that they will do what the law says.
If Niger and Chad were to be parts of Nigeria, probably they would not have discovered oil because nobody would have bothered to explore it.
If that is the bargain, when we get to the point of taking decisions, we will know.
But for now, the agency must be put in place; it is not going to be a department.
We will resist such and once it is in place, we will see wonders in the North and then there is going to be mutual respect for one another as nobody will look down on the other man.
Then, Niger Delta can take 200 per cent and we too will take our own. Remember, nobody would have imagined that there was going to be oil in Kogi but today there is oil in the state.
We will move from there and have oil in about 14 states in Nigeria and nobody will complain.
I will urge my colleagues in the National Assembly that, irrespective of where they come from, this bill is good for us all.
I feel pained when I see the abject poverty in the North.
Do you know what differentiate the North from the South? The moment you enter Kwara and Kogi states, coming up North, the poverty starts graduating, going up and this is not what any Nigerian who is committed to our unity and stability should encourage.
We must find a way of minimising poverty in the North because if there is too much poverty here, there would not be peace and stability in the whole country.
