The New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC), owned by the 19 Northern States of Nigeria, on Friday, said it would begin oil and gas exploration in the north-east in the first quarter of 2016.
Chairman of the company, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, stated this while briefing journalists at NNDC’s 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Kaduna.
According to him, the company was collaborating with its technical partners and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the expertise and budgetary requirements for the take-off of the project.
Also speaking, the company’s Group Managing Director (GMD), Alhaji Ahmed Musa explained that NNDC could not commence the project as earlier planned due to the security situation in the region. Apart from that, he noted that the company was constrained by finance and production sharing formula.
Musa said the company needed $20 million dollars for exploration on each of four oil blocks which caused part of the delay. However, he assured that plans were underway to begin the project within the first quarter of 2016.
He said that the NNDC would open the exploration in the four oil blocks allocated to it in the Lake Chad Basin, while plans were underway to acquire four more oil blocks in the region.
Now that oil is failing, what about exploration of the plethora of mineral resources locked in the vast desert of the North? Like gold, bauxite, uranium, etc. in more than commercial quantity? Get cracking. No more free money under Buhari/Osinbajo presidency.
You are planning ahead to seceed as soon as you get oil in the North. That time you will no longer be interested in one indivisible Nigeria. How about all the solid minerals abound in the North?
You want to use the resources from the south to develope the project for the 19 Northern States who will then claim ownership and not give credit to the federal government and the dividends will not accrue for the federation account.
The 19 Northern states should fund the project if they so wish and indigenize the project. Why was there no allocation of any of the oil blocks to any southerner if you believe in one indivisible and united Nigerian Nation/country?