Barely 24 hours after militants in the Niger Delta released two Filipino hostages, President Oluse-gun Obasanjo has warned against further “acts of violence, hostage-taking or antisocial behaviour.”
According to the President, violence as they would escalate rather than solve the problems of the people.
He spoke at the Nigerian Energy Congress held at the Presidential Hotel, Port Harco-urt, Rivers State where he canvassed for a peaceful atmosphere to enable him implement the development plans he had for the area.
Obasanjo spoke through Professor A. Adegbulugbe and appealed to the youths who had been behind violent agitations in the area to shun negative and disruptive activities, saying that he intended to secure the lives and property of the people in the troubled region.
He said: “Let me reassure you all, and in particular, the companies operating in the Niger Delta areas, that while government is committed to redressing the development challenges in the Niger Delta and its people, we will not shirk our responsibility of guarantying the security of lives and property deployed to work in the area, as indeed in all parts of Nigeria.”
The President said government was monitoring the acts of violence and brigandage in the area closely by putting in place more coherent security surveillance and response systems that would deter criminality and ensure the restoration of law and order.
He said government had been concerned about the problems of the Niger Delta, adding that it was this that led to the creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
According to the President, when it was realised that the NDDC could not cope, government set up the Presidential Committee on Social and Infrastructural Development in the Coaster States of Nigeria.
Admitting that despite the efforts of his administration, “there are still many rivers to cross and many more grounds to cover”, he said the violence in the area would neither deter nor distract him from accomplishing the lofty developmental goals he was pursuing.
Obasanjo noted that there was a positive correlation between economic development and access to energy as no nation could achieve industrial development without most of its citizens having access to energy supply.
He said the crisis in the energy sector w as a product of long term neglect, adding that the consequence of this was the country’s industrial backwardness.
The President said it was in realization of the problems of the sector that his administration factored into the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) the need to address the problems.
To achieve this, he said, government had opened up the electricity sector to the private sector as well as ensuring that efforts at energy reforms encompassed all dimensions ranging from legal, policy and regulatory frameworks.
Part of the solution the government had offered, the President said, was to link the development of our petroleum resources with electric power generation, through the Gas-to-power and gas-to-liquid initiatives.
He explained that when these initiatives were fully implemented they would lead to a harvest of IPP projects in Nigeria.
Obasanjo stated: “To further the gas-to-power initiative, our administration is making huge capital investments in power generation, through the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) which is assigned to generate 4,500 MW of electricity with the establishment of eight gas fired power plants under NIPP in addition to four other power plants.”
In his address, Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Edmund Daukoru, lamented that despite rapid development in the upstream sector of the oil industry in Nigeria, not much had been achieved in the downstream sector, leading to continued importation of refined products.
He also called for combined efforts to facilitate the development of rural areas as well as host communities to oil industries, pointing out that most of the problems in the Niger Delta were community and environment related.
Meanwhile, the President has set up a committee to assess the magnitude of incidence of petroleum products pipeline vandalisation throughout the country, just as four States in the country have been identified to have the highest rate of the problem.
The states are Lagos, Rivers, Enugu and Delta.
The development followed a meeting with a delegation of Petroleum Tanker Drivers and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Funso Kupolokun, yesterday at the State House.
The President has however, tasked the committee chaired by the Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Ambassador Aderemi Esan, to also identify the immediate and remote causes of the vandalisation; those involved, and recommend measures to eliminate the harmful incidence.
Members of the committee, which was given up to the middle of July to submit its report to the President, are representatives of NNPC, NUPENG, Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN).
Others to be represented are the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), major marketers and dealers, the police, State Security Service and the military.
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