ODAHIEKWU OGUNDE, Yenagoa
Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that he signed the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Development Act in 2010 to establish the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) because he wanted at least 80 per cent of the needs in the oil industry to be produced in Nigeria.
He said the action was to make the citizens benefit from operations of oil production as it is attainable in other advanced countries.
Jonathan spoke on Friday when he led his course mates of the 1981 class of the University of Port Harcourt Alumni to visit the Oil and Gas Industrial Park at Emeyal I in Ogbia Local Government.
The park is being developed by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board with headquarters in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
Jonathan said by the time the same centre is built in all the states in Niger Delta, at least 50 per cent of the needs in the oil industry would be produced in-country.
He said: “When I was deputy governor in 2000, I led the Bayelsa State trade delegation to China, because we came from an oil producing area. They took us to their oil city, and if you go to the city, you will be happy with the oil operations, there are oil wells in the front of the offices and houses, and their oil wells are very shallow, something like pump, and the oil pumping in front of the houses with grasses green.
“When they took us round oil operations from manual to hi-tech, the key thing I learned from that China movement in 2000 was that oil was discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria in 1956 by western companies, oil was also discovered in commercial quantity in China in 1958, two years after they discovered oil in Nigeria by the same western company, but by the year 2000, up to 80% of the components and the need of oil industry, China produced it within the country
But in Nigeria, if Agip needs one thing, they will go to Italy or France, if it is Shell, they will go to the Netherlands.
“So, I was determined that for us as a nation to gain from the oil industry, at least 80 per cent of the oil industry need should be produced in-country, by divine providence, I became a President, I felt something must be done. The idea of local content is to ensure that at least 80 per cent of the needs in the oil industry is produced in this country, so that was my vision then.”
Ex-president Jonathan anfd and his classmates in 1981 visited other places including Prof E. Alagoa, one of their lecturers in University of Port Harcourt in 1981 in Nembe area of Bayelsa State.