The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has decried the loss of Nigeria’s huge natural gas resources to the nation’s inability to harness it as other nations have done for their development.
He assured Nigerians that the party’s presidential candidate and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would continue with the country’s gas development plan as an alternative source of revenue.
Okowa, who spoke on a Channels Television programme: “People’s Town Hall” monitored in Asaba, the Delta State capital, said a Federal Government under Atiku would check illegal oil bunkering, including high profile theft of the nation’s petroleum products.
He called for proper enforcement of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to check oil theft.
Okowa said Nigeria is currently not getting maximum benefit from its oil production because it was hamstrung by high-profile oil theft, including illegal oil bunkering, which has negatively affected the country’s oil production quota.
He said: “While other countries are getting a lot more resources from oil to develop other sectors of their economy, we don’t seem to benefit from that because we are producing less than what we ought to produce.
“There is the need to ramp up production by dealing with illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region through strong community engagement and by ensuring implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
“We can also achieve that by ensuring the communities have a buy-in and also work with security agencies to deal with oil theft.
“The gas sector is one that we tend to ignore. If we come in next year, we will ensure continuation of the gas development plan, and the reforms will be carried out critically to rake in more resources for the country.”
The Delta State government said a PDP administration at the centre would be committed to fuel subsidy removal because it has been draining Nigeria’s resources.
He said Atiku would have been the greatest hero of today’s Nigeria, if he had been among those insisting that 2023 was Southeast’s turn to produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor.
Okeke-Ogene, who is also the National Vice President of Ohaneze Ndigbo, said the PDP flag bearer would have seen next year’s election as a payback time for the sacrifices Ndigbo made for him during the last general election in 2019.
He said: “If conscience is anything to go by, the two major political parties couldn’t have fielded candidates from any other zone other than the Southeast. The Igbo are being persecuted …today because they gave Atiku during his last election 95 per cent votes.
“What Obasanjo and others are doing today is what we had expected from Atiku, who happens to be our in-law. That’s why it’s not good to vote according to sentiments.
“Atiku would have known that the entire Southeast sacrificed their votes and interest for him and see this election as a payback time. He wouldn’t have engineered and funded the ‘no-zoning’ campaign because we voted for him based on zoning.
“Atiku would have been the greatest hero of our times, if he had been in the forefront of championing its turn of the Southeast. But if Atiku fails in this election, he will go to the grave as unrepentant person, sorry to use that word, but it’s very unfortunate.”
