Had far-sighted, committed and patriotic Nigerians piloted the affairs of the country from the time of independence in 1960 it should have dawned on them that hydrocarbon, fossil fuel and mineral deposits have a fixed life span and would someday cease to exist. It has never been considered, in more informed politico-economic circles as dependable as a renewable source of revenue like agriculture. The country's current oil reserves in the Niger-Delta region stand at some 30 billion barrels.
In specific terms, the controversial Economic Confidential report traces the factors responsible for the nation's dwindling oil reserves to activities of militants, rapid depletion of ore, a major component of exploration and of course 'ineptitude leadership'. The latter is patently obvious.
Holding a contrary view however, the National Association Of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE reiterated its stand that the nation's oil wells are not likely to dry up soon. Speaking through its immediate past president, Victor Agbe-Davies the body of geoscientists insists that there is a paradigm shift to off shore oil drilling, where Nigeria still boasts of large deposits of oil and gas. But it did concede the fact that some of the onshore oil wells are drying up. Even then, it argues that with the aid of modern computer technology more crude oil could still be found and drilled in the ones that appear to have vapourised. We may not dispute that claim.
What gets us worried however, is that wise counsel should have prevailed way back in 1956 when crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantity at Oloibiri, (now in Bayelsa State) to maximize its potentials for a transformative, national socio-economic development. Much of the oil revenue ought to have been deployed for massive infrastructural outlay of stable, electric power and pipe-borne water supply, good access roads, modern, long lasting rail and water transport systems. In addition, a holistic plan on sustainable human capacity building would also have driven the engine of economic growth far from the prostrate and parlous state it has found itself in today.
With the contract-seeking syndrome of the thieving business class and the massive rural urban drift of the agile youths on in full swing, agriculture was relegated to the shadows. In the corridors of power, allocation of oil blocks for political patronage held sway while the needs of the masses meant nothing to the political office holders. Unarguably, crass corruption in high places with the avaricious pillage of the national till by the overtly greedy political elite with their cohorts in the private sector has resulted in the inexcusable lacuna that currently exists between the country's enormous economic potentialities and the gnawing poverty of the populace. The anti-graft agencies have revealed that not less than 400 billion US dollars of public funds have been salted away by corrupt individuals since 1960. In 1981 for instance, a World Bank Report claimed that Nigeria earned a whopping $25 billion (dollars) in oil revenue at a time one naira exchanged for $1.63. But by 1995 the nation was ranked as one of the 10 poorest nations, no thanks to the kleptomaniac military brass! It was without doubt the only oil producing country with such an appallingly low economic growth indices.
The pain of it all has been the political leaders' inability to make a deliberate clean break from the corrupt tendencies of the past.
Similarly, in 2008 another World Bank Report entitled Wealth In Africa Statistics put Nigeria's wealth-per-head as the lowest in the African continent! At N356,352 it fell far below that of South Africa which led with N7.6million.It got so bad that the country was ranked alongside Mauritius, a near failed state. Not unexpectedly the poverty index has soared from 15 per cent at independence to 66 per cent by 1997 and well over 70 per cent in 2010.
Now that regulatory and monitoring agencies such as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation And Fiscal Commission(RMAFC) are concerned about the Economic Confidential Report we do hope there will be concrete actions than mere official anxiety. Our leaders ought to have realized that with Angola becoming a major player in the continent's oil industry and its easy accessibility by the South American countries we stood the chance of losing much oil revenue. More so, because there is a gradual global shift from fossil fuel to more environmentally friendly alternative sources of energy. All that are about to be compounded by President Obama's recent reversal on the ban placed on oil drilling off the South Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.
It is obvious also that successive administrations have treated past warning signals from credible international organizations with a pinch of salt. For instance, the nation was informed at the commissioning of the Liquefied National Gas, LNG project at Bonny back in 1997 that the gas reserves would last for only 24 years. But after series of workshops no workable solutions were proffered, as to the long term plans on the judicious use of gas revenue. Like the foolish farmer we never saved for the rainy day.
But now that the chickens have come home to roost, the policy makers must institute visionary plans to diversify the economy to modern agricultural practices, information and marine technologies, tourism while battling corruption frontally and using available resources on sustainable human capacity building.
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