Emma Amaize
19 August 2008
Warri — NIGER Delta leaders and groups, Sunday, rejected an apparent plan of the Federal Government to tinker with the National Gas Masterplan to construct pipelines to channel gas, produced in the Niger Delta states of Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers to Lagos State, which some people consider as not posing any form of danger from militants, warning that it will increase crisis in the Niger Delta.
Former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark; eminent jurist and retired Supreme Court Justice, Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte; and the National President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Dr. Chris Ekiyor, told Vanguard categorically that there would be serious danger in embarking on such a pipe-dream.
IYC National President, Dr. Ekiyor, stated specifically that laying such gas pipeline would be a waste of time, adding: "If they are saying that it is because of security challenge, it is the government that created the security challenge in the first instance by its actions and inactions, so it should address the challenge and not ignite a fresh crisis."
They advised the Federal Government to develop the Escravos gas plant in Delta State and another gas plant in Bayelsa State, and create jobs for the Niger Delta youths, warning that anything short of that would be creating a fresh crisis in the region, as there is no justification for the planned action.
However, an entrepreneur and PDP chieftain, Chief Adolor Okotie-Eboh, differed from the other Niger Delta leaders, saying the decision to pipe gas from Niger Delta states to Lagos was taken because of the economic viability of Lagos and the need to actualise the nation's Vision 2020 goal and suggested that the Federal Government should launch a campaign to explain its intention to the people and the nation at large.
Vanguard gathered that even the Rivers State Government was confused about the new plan, which is being promoted by the Minister of Gas from the South-West region and may have sent a delegation to the Presidency to find out what was in the offing.
Former chairman of the defunct OMPADEC, Chief Alfred Horsfal, told Vanguard when contacted that he had heard the rumour, but said: "I think you should ask the Vice President and other Federal Government officials from the Niger Delta to speak on it. I actually don't want to speak on it."
We're opposed to it - Clark
But Chief Clark who said he wanted to be sure of the actual intention of the government before making comments said the government of President Umaru Yar'Adua would be starting another war in the Niger Delta if such a policy was what it was trying to come up with.
He said: "From the beginning, the people of the South-South have expressed their opposition to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo's plan to pipe gas from the region to the Olokonla plant, between Ondo and Ogun states, which he built to spite our people. His regime could not, however, carry out the plan because our youths threatened to blow up the pipeline."
Chief Clark said the latter plan to make the pipelines to pass through the Atlantic Ocean as decoy before coming back to the Olokonla gas plant at a cost of $3 billion was abandoned when the regime discovered that it would face the same fate.
The Niger Delta leader said it was, therefore, shocking that the President Yar'Adua's regime was putting the same old wine in a new bottle, saying they want to pipe gas from Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states to Lagos State where the government thinks it would not be harassed.
"We are opposed to it. The Escravos gas plant and the gas plant in Bayelsa State should be developed instead of piping gas to Lagos. We want our youths to be employed in the gas plants in our region. They need employment, and it should not be taken to another area. The Federal Government should drop the idea. The people of the Niger Delta are strongly opposed to such a policy.
"In fact, anything that will stop the people of the Niger Delta from benefiting from their natural resources should be avoided.
"It is in doing this kind of thing that the oil companies that operate in our region set up their head offices in Lagos, some of their workers even come to work in the Niger Delta from Lagos, at the end of the month, they collect their salaries and pay tax to the Lagos State government. We are tired of all these type of things, and that is why we said, long ago, that all the oil companies should relocate their headquarters from Lagos to the Niger Delta", Chief Clark asserted.
Not in interest of N-Delta people - Karibi-Whyte
Justice Karibi-Whyte who also said he had heard the rumour of the attempt to re-draw the National Gas Master Plan said: "I don't know the mechanism they want to use, but all I can tell you is that such a policy is not in the interest of the Niger Delta people. You cannot be producing gas in the Niger Delta and be piping to Lagos without developing our gas plants."
He said to the best of his knowledge, Rivers State produces up to 80 per cent of the gas in the country and the people would not accept the piping of the gas to Lagos instead of using it to create jobs and enhance the welfare of the people of the state and the region.
It won't work - IYC
IYC president, Dr. Ekiyor, said: "In the first instance, I want to tell you from the point of view of the IYC that it is impossible to pipe gas from Niger Delta states to Lagos. Number one, the indices that guide the location of industries, which include nearness to raw materials, nearness to market and labour are all available in the Niger Delta. We have the raw materials, the workers are there and all that. So, what are they talking about piping gas to Lagos, what for?
"If they are talking about security challenge in the Niger Delta, it is the government that created it in the first instance through its inadequacies and it should address it. But I want to state for the avoidance of doubt that the issue of piping gas to Lagos won't work. It is a dream, they are wasting time, simple and short," he said.
It makes sense -Adolor Okotie-Eboh
Chief Okotie-Eboh who felt that government should be allowed to proceed with the project said: "I think it is because Lagos is the commercial capital of the country and it makes economic sense for the government to do so. The Federal Government should explain the policy to the people but it must make sure that it builds gas turbines in the Niger-Delta."
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I dont know what our constitution says on the relationship of the Federal govt.and the state govt.Otherwise it should have been necessary to table the issue of piping gas from Niger Delta state to Lagos State in the Delta state assembly to get their support before implementation.It would have been easier to locate the gas plant at Benin instead of Lagos which is very conggested for the localization of gas industry.