Port Harcourt — Former governor of Cross River State, Mr Donald Duke, has said with the 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas being flared daily for 30 years, Nigeria is the most polluted nation in the world.
Duke, who spoke at the 2009 distinguished lecture series of the Nigerian Environmental Society, Rivers State chapter, at Novotel, Port Harcourt, lamented that Nigerians have not embraced the consciousness of seeing plants and animals as our neighbours, which will make us care for them, for our own safety.
He said the gas being flared daily flowed from the lack of political will to address the issue and expressed hope that the January 2010 date set by the Senate to enforce the law passed on the issue would be realistic.
According to him, the volume of gas flared was big enough to generate at least 50 megawatts of power, in addition to ensuring a cleaner environment. The same quantity of gas flared amounted to 25 million litres of diesel or five million gallons of diesel and wondered if that could not be put to better use.
He said heat consumes oxygen, which was not good for the environment and pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which affects the ecosystem and in turn affects life.
He said he discovered that Cross River State did not have much derivation from oil like some other states and decided to create environment where people who have the money could come and spend it.
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Well, its about time some of you realized the monstrosity here. This is the same kind of gas that you are building the Trans Sahara pipeline for. It has enormous value. When a company wastes a salable resource, the problem is always a political one. The political system is either holding down a price or taxing a profit (all political systems do both: Vampires! When the long-term interests of the people conflict with their short term interests, a politician must respond to the short term or not be reelected.). No company can sustain an unprofitable effort, nor will it bypass a ready profit. The flaring is a symptom of underpricing. Nigerian gas production and use should be primarily for Nigerians, rather than for export. It is insane to have it that it is profitable to export it to the EU over a $10billion pipeline, but not to Abuja and Lagos.
Economic activity is controlled with money far more effectively than with regulation. In the long-term interests of the people, the only proper price for anything is the one that maximizes the profit of the producer. Short sighted populism is the real cause of most economic problems.