By Ibrahim Sambo
On Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the drilling of two oil wells on Kolmani OPL 809 & 810 at the Kolmani field sites in the northeastern states of Bauchi and Gombe. The two sites have about 1 billion barrels of crude oil reserves based on initial figures by the NNPC, with the potential to produce N32 trillion over 10years (at crude price of $73 per barrel).
From many angles in the North, this sparked a euphoric roar. This euphoria is quite understandable. Who would not want to have, at their disposal, tremendous quantities of the most traded commodity in the world, the mighty magical black liquid?
And even with all the green-economy and climate-smart drive by the West, the exit of the fossil fuel era is some distant away. Some months ago, the most foremost and practical evangelist of renewable energy, Elon Musk, stated in a conference in Norway that “civilization will crumble” if the world stops the use of oil and natural gas and called for continued drilling and exploration of fossil fuel sources.
Further, the concerns that the two sites where the reserves are located (Gombe and Bauchi states) are far from port terminals (at-least 700km away), hence a potential difficulty in exporting the crude oil has been laid to rest by the NNPC as they announced the plan to refine the crude oil around the oil fields by building a 120,000 barrels per day refinery. This is in addition to gas processing facilities and a power plant that could generate at least 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
But even with all these, there is still a great deal of pessimism as to whether we can derive the juices from the oil revenues, or we will be struck with what economists called the “resource curse”, a situation where a region has valuable natural resources but are still steeped in poverty.
A question that will linger on the mind of every discerning and concerning northerner would be, what future does this hold for the states involved, or the region, or even the country in terms of economic prosperity. A superficial answer would be that the oil and its byproducts will drive more revenue to the government for social and infrastructural development, provide employments for the youths and improve standard of living. While this is true on paper, it would not necessarily be so in practice.
For one, the resource-curse phenomenon is real. When the first oil wells in Nigeria were discovered in Oloibiri in 1958, jubilations filled the air, and it was assumed that within few years, this precious commodity will pick Nigeria up from the gutters of poverty and put her on the elitist list of wealthy nations. But 65 years down the line, Nigeria is still stuck deep in that stinking gutter. Similar thing is happening with oil-rich countries like Columbia and Venezuela for instance where they produce humongous volumes of oil but are still poor.
The second frightening thing is environmental concerns. Uncontrolled oil spill is a major threat in oil-producing areas, and a perfect example of these devastating effects we have seen in Ogoniland, where some 2.1 million barrels of oil was spilled into the land, adversely affecting their water, farming and fishing activities. Here too, this environmental fear was allayed—at-least verbally—by Gombe state governor, when he remarked during the flag-off ceremony that the region “will avoid mistake of the Niger Delta.” “With regard to the issue of the environment,” the Governor remarked, “our ministry of environment is working hand in hand with the Federal Ministry of Environment and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) so that we will avoid all the mistakes and pitfalls that have been the big challenge of oil exploration and implementation in the southern part of the country.”
But as oil has been a curse to some, so has it been a blessing to others. Petrodollars has created immense wealth in the middle-eastern Gulf countries such as never seen in history. There is nothing that can stop northern Nigeria from doing exactly so. Oil can turn the North, and indeed Nigeria into an incredibly virile economic powerhouse.
The two northeastern states of Bauchi and Gombe will now, potentially, have a share of the 13% oil derivation fund pie. And this fund is quite huge. For starters, in just 11years, the 8 oil producing states pocketed a whopping N6trn from this fund. This share of the 13% oil derivation fund, a petroleum refinery and a gas plant, a powerplant, a fertilizer plant, all exude odor of economic merriment.
The question now is how do we make these seemingly tremendous economic potential translate into real time prosperity. The answer lies in adopting the classic model that has worked for the middle eastern countries which is great, visionary leadership.
Leadership—and not an abundance of resources, is the foundation upon which prosperity lies upon, as we have seen time and again. It is that simple. Without good leadership, a society has zero chance of prosperity even if bars of gold gushes down the gutters of its towns and cities.
When Sheikh Muhammed Al-Makhtoum put a tiny desert nation, the UAE, on to the world map, it was through sheer vision and strategic implementation. The North needs to have Al-Makhtoums who would properly manage the money gotten from this venture and channel into well-crafted visions of development; of erecting technology infrastructures for a digital economy, of building mega industries that provide jobs, of constructing roads and state-of-the-art health facilities, of building modern schools and laboratories, of building structures for hospitality and tourism, and all the things that make for a modern economy. The money will be there and in abundance.
As the first oil drill takes place in the Northern region, can we get into power the leaders who would properly use the money from this venture into longterm projects that will finally liberate the North from extreme poverty that has so much traumatize us, and turn it to a modern economy, full of wealth and possibilities and opportunities, or are we leaving the money to go down the wire, into the pocket of the privileged few elites, just like our southern brothers, and just be bragging that we are now oil producing entities, with nothing to show? It is now left to us. In the words of the Hausa man, dabara ya rage wa mai shiga rijiya.
Ibrahim Sambo writes from Lagos. He can be reached at ibrahymsambo4@gmail.com