From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Gombe State governor, Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya, has assured that the recently discovered oil field in the north will herald multiple blessings and development, as against what is obtained in several other places where there’s oil exploration.
The governor, in an interview with BBC Hausa, at the weekend, said they have learned from the mistakes of Niger Delta, adding that interests of all parties, including the host communities have been captured in the working document and guidelines.
He also confirmed that mechanisms have been put in place to checkmate incidences of oil theft and other illegal operations that could result in lost of billion of dollars in terms of revenue for the government.
He said: “If you look at what has happened in the Niger Delta where there has been oil exploration for years, there’s issues of environmental degradation and agitations by by the host communities.
“The host communities have complained that they are not getting what they are supposed to get in terms of financial resources and other positive interventions from the oil companies, and that might have gave rise to restiveness. As a result, both the country and the host communities never enjoyed maximum benefit of the resource.”
He said that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) will be a guide in their operations, stressing the issues of crisis and restiveness will be averted if items in the PIA are carefully followed.
Recall that Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), in 2019 announced the discovery of crude oil in the Kolmani River at the border community between Bauchi and Gombe states.
Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari, Commissioned the commercial oil exploration in the newly discovered oil field in northern Nigeria.
The new field holds over one billion barrels of crude oil reserves, and it’s expected to produce about 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day, thus shooting up Nigeria’s oil reserves to over 38 billion barrels.
