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Security, local content
dominate Nigeria�s trade talks in London
By Greg
Obong-Oshotse
Europe
and North America Editor,
London
Industry
majors and smaller investors eager for a prime cut of Nigeria�s fabulous
oil and gas wealth came out en masse to see how they could benefit at a
conference on Tuesday in London that was dominated by matters of security.
But the
most critical issue was the call for an increase in local content in the
oil and gas sector, an issue that has become increasingly contentious in
the past years and one that is largely credited with the unending
restiveness among youth in the oil-and-gas producing Niger
Delta.
�We must
confront the facts as we see them,� said Presidential Adviser on Petroleum
and Energy, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, in his remarks at the opening of the
Nigerian Upstream Oil and Gas Conference holding at
Le Meridien
Hotel in Piccadilly, London.
He said
local content index in the sector was just three per cent, charging that,
�The issue of indigene participation and ownership in the entire
hydrocarbon value chain is one on which we must make great
strides.�
His remarks
set the tone for what seemed an agreed effort to link the security
concerns in the Niger Delta with the paltry local content in the lucrative
sector which has engendered anger and violence from indigenes who feel
cheated by the oil and gas investors.
Another
speaker, Dr. Uduimoh Itsueli, Managing Director, Dubri Oil Company Limited
and Member, Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
echoed Daukoru�s sentiments.
�The
Nigerian content in the industry must be over 75 per cent over the next
ten years,� said Itsueli. �This will not only ensure security and
employment in these areas, but will go a long way to meeting the
aspirations of our increasingly educated, restless and frustrated young
ones.�
Nigeria�s
High Commissioner to the Court of St. James, Dr. Christopher Olusola
Kolade, who opened the conference urged �greater cooperation among all
stakeholders� as the only way to curb various manifestations of insecurity
in the oil and gas terrain but assured that �a more secure management of
the oil and gas sector is achievable.�
Deputy
Governor of Rivers State, Gabriel Toby, who stood in for Governor Peter
Odili, weighed in with his argument that the insecurity in Nigeria�s oil
and gas terrain was partly traceable to the collusion of allies in the
Western nations who encourage illegal bunkering and illegal trafficking in
arms because they benefit from them.
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