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| Obong Victor Attah |
– He said it wasn’t right that oil blocs were owned by people from other region
– He advised the government to swiftly diversify the economy
Obong Victor Attah, the former governor of Akwa Ibom has said that Niger Delta militancy was fuelled by the fact that oil blocs were owned by people not from the region.
Vanguard reports that the former governor said the south south feels it is carrying the whole nation and this issue must be addressed.
“The South South has the feeling that the rest of the country wants to milk it, pollute it or completely milk it dry and then tell them goodbye. There is that fear and it is not being addressed because the question is why are you preserving all your resources and exploiting only this one? “There is this concept of diversification. When you talk about diversification, people just think it has to do with going into agriculture, apart from oil. It is not sufficient.
‘’Diversification should come in more areas than just agriculture. If we had diversified our source of power, today we would not feel it so much, at least certainly not in the effect of these bombings (of oil and gas installations).
‘’Today, we are dependent almost exclusively and entirely on the gas turbines and then oil, but if we had had hydro, coal and solar, those boys would see that they are hurting themselves because, we could say, ok, you have cut off the source of power in your area, so you do not have power but the other parts of the country would still have power. ”
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‘’They would see that they are not hurting anybody other than themselves. And they would see that in fact, it is silly, what they are doing. So, diversification is beyond going into agriculture.
‘’You will diversify in several other areas and one of the areas you must look at urgently and you must begin to give confidence to other people who have these resources is in the solid minerals.
‘’Go and look at the ownership of Itakpe Iron Ore. It is a mineral resource but even the community is part of the ownership arrangement but tell me whether anybody was ever consulted before oil blocs were given out in the South-South. You know what I mean?
‘’That is why recently I wrote an article and said this Petroleum Industry Bill, let us go softly with it.
‘’Let us be sure that everything is even-handed because if you now come by this bill and treat oil mineral differently from other minerals and give the people on whose lands other minerals are found greater advantages than you have given to people on whose lands oil is found, there would still be dissatisfaction.
‘’So, why can’t we come out with “Mineral Bill”? The 10 percent that was supposed to be given, they said no, that because this one is governance bill. Is that happening in other areas of mineral exploitation? It is a question we have to answer.”
Attah advised President Muhammadu Buhari to look into the confab report as it contained suggestions to move the country forward.
“You would realize one thing; that the people who today are steering the party called APC, were in opposition at the time to the government in place. They did not like the idea, because they had this notion that whatever the government does, the opposition must oppose.
‘’So, they opposed the conference and I think they are just holding on to that for whatever reason. There comes a time when you have to acknowledge that, well, you did it because you had to do it or you did it because you were wrong, then you change that position.
‘’Somebody was writing, a major feature writer, in one of the newspapers and he was trying to support the president’s position with regards to that conference report.
‘’He wanted to say that the president has good reasons not to want to consider that report because after all, and this was what he said, President Jonathan d
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