Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Olu of Warri, Ogiamen Ikenwoli, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to revive the $20 billion Ogidigben Gas Revolution Industrial Park.
The park, which covers over 2,700 hectares, was designed for fertilizer, methanol, petrochemicals, and aluminium plants.
The monarch, who led traditional rulers from Delta State on a visit to the president, also urged the Federal Government to open up ports facilities in the southern and eastern corridors to help decongest the Lagos ports which has grounded economic activities in the state.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan had inaugurated the industrial park, projected to generate 250,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the visit, the monarch regretted that efforts by the former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, to attract developers collapsed after a consortium had pooled over $10 billion for the project.
“If the project and the ports in the southern parts of the country are revived, unemployment, kidnapping and insecurity will be a thing of the past,” he said.
Ogiamen Ikenwoli said the monarchs were at the Presidential Villa as a sign of solidarity and to congratulate the president on his election victory.
The Warri monarch also noted that ports located in Warri, Sapele, Burutu, Onitsha and Calabar had served as major sources of job creation and social stabilisation in the past.
“We are talking of how to create jobs. We all know that youth restiveness, crimes and kidnapping were at their minimal levels when these ports were operational,” he said.