The Presidential Support Committee (PSC) on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari has clarified that the recent discovery of oil deposits in Bauchi and Gombe states will benefit all Nigerians.
In a press conference Kaduna over the weekend, the Director of Media and Publicity, PSC, Dr Kailani Muhammad said the oil deposits found in these states are not for the states alone but the entire country.
According to the spokesperson, the president needs to be applauded in view of the fact that oil exploration began since in the 1990s when the contract was awarded to Shell and Chevron both failed.
Again, he said in 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the oil exploration to the New Nigeria Development Company (NNDC), saying the exploration also failed to yield any positive results until on the 2nd February 2019 when President Buhari broke the jinx.
However, he was quick to add that in spite of the milestone achieved, some selfish politicians have started flying unnecessary permutations to cause disharmony among Nigerians.
“We have said it severally and I will say it yet again; our so-called elites have always been leaning towards heating up the polity in order to achieve selfish ends.
“We are happy that President Buhari has broken the jinx of oil and gas economy politics by dragging the net around the country in his efforts to beef up the nation’s treasury trajectory.”
According to the spokesperson, “the oil and gas discovered in Gombe and Bauchi states cannot be consumed by the indigenes of the two states alone but it is for the benefit of the entire nation.”
Muhammad who is also an APC chieftain remarked that “what we have now is that one of the wells at Kolmani in the Upper Benue Trough has a reservoir of 1 billion barrels of crude oil, while the other has a reservoir of 500 million cubic feet of gas.
“These oil blocks which traverse Bauchi and Gombe states will be developed by Sterling Global Oil, New Nigeria Development Commission (NNDC) and the NNPC Limited. The integrated development of OPLs 809 and 810 in the Gongola Basin, in the Upper Benue Trough extends about 1,000 km from the Bight of Benin to Lake Chad.
“This is a national economic breakthrough. One begins to wonder how some people are saying that the pipeline to Gombe is a scheme to take crude oil from the Southern part of the country to the North.”
According to him, apart from the Gombe-Bauchi discovery, there are other locations in the Northern part of the country with large deposits of hydrocarbon.
“All these deposits will generally impact the Nigerian economy. We appeal to President Buhari to ensure that explorations in these new locations begin before he exits office in 2023.
“We hope that the discovery of these oil deposits in the North will put an end to the much touted and misplaced propaganda that the North is dependent on the South for sustenance because of its oil deposits.
“What the generality of Nigerians wants is the diversification of the economy by the state governors who wait in overseas locations only to come back to Nigeria when the free money from the federation account is ready for collection,” he stressed.
