Kudos to local content manufacturers
I wish to express my
pleasure following
the recent news in some publications that Nigerian companies can now produce to meet all the steel and pipe product standards for the oil and gas industry. This piece of information caught my attention despite government’s slow coach approach to ensuring the Nigerian content policy becomes a reality; some companies are making huge investments in local content manufacturing especially within the oil industry.
This is not to say that the ongoing participation is satisfactory because we are not there yet. Cost of entry into the industry is very high and some investors cannot meet the demands. I hope that very soon this would be a thing of the past and we can see more indigenous participation at all levels of the industry.
You will recall that 54% of Nigeria’s oil and gas expenditure is on procurement and most of the procurement is actually steel products which include pipes. The steel rolling plants in Nigeria produce only reinforcement bars popularly called iron rods while only a few indigenous companies produce structural steel which is in constant high demand in other areas of the economy. There is therefore a ready market for investors to take advantage of.
The industry is capital intensive, government is spending heavily on importation and procurement and money is constantly leaving the shores of this country. Indigenous participation will earn more revenue for the economy, create more jobs and also generate income if and when steel and pipes produced in Nigeria by Nigerians begin to be in high demand in West Africa and beyond because of the quality.
I say a big kudos to those companies who have taken the initiative and are preparing seriously to carve a niche for their businesses while competing with their international counterparts and would like to use this opportunity to challenge other indigenous investors to take advantage of other areas like manufacture of paints and cables that meet international standards to turn the oil and gas industry to a truly and proudly Nigerian company.
The Nigerian content policy if properly implemented, will save the country foreign exchange, create jobs, deepen and expand the technological base, reduce foreign domination and significantly boost the oil and gas industry’s contribution to the overall GDP.
Sola Yemi,
Yemisola2801@yahoo.com
Still on Nwosu’s revelations
IT took 15 long agonizing years for him to
claim to release the result of the June12, 1993 election. But he left us, the apostles of June 12, more traumatized and severely annoyed. Not only did he try to distort facts, he did so with impunity knowing that his master as at then and now will still pay him anyway.
But this distortion of facts is too much to bear and the reaction from the general public is unprecedented. What are we talking about here?
Professor Humphrey Nwosu, former chairman of the defunct NEC is making efforts to tell whoever cares to listen that General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida did not annul the June 12, 1993 election rather it was General Sani Abacha, Murtala Nyako, Aliyu Mohammed and others that annulled it. To go straight to the point, Babangida in one of the interviews he granted the press acknowledged that he only cancelled the election and that he did not annul it.
Let us look at Babangida’s antecedence to confirm that he actually masterminded and annulled the June 12 1993 election and nobody else.
IBB, as he is fondly called by his admirers, did say then that he was not only in power and government but that he was in charge and that he was the military president and commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria and he acted it out practically in all his eight years of military adventure.
Babangida’s actions prior to June 12, 1993 pointed to the fact that he wanted to perpetuate himself in power like Idi Amin of Uganda.
The first case was the IMF debate of 1985. He had assembled some of the best brains in the country then such as Professor Aluko, Professor Ayagi and many others who advised him against implementing the IMF conditions but Babangida unilaterally implemented the IMF conditions even without recourse to the AFRC. Babangida was so dictatorial that he sacked his military chiefs and members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council at will.
As a maximum ruler, Babangida was the state and the state was Babangida. What he dreamt of then automatically became law.
To confirm that General Babangida was the alpha and the omega of his military regime, on two occasions, he dissolved the AFRC and re-constituted it into PRC at one time and NSDC at another and he equally converted his Chief of General Staff into a civilian vice president in anticipation of his transformation into civilian president. It was the same Babangida who promised to hand over to civilians in 1990 which he failed to do but shifted it to 1992 which he yet again failed to honour until the June 12 1993 nemesis caught up with him and he was eventually forced out by civilians led by Chief MKO Abiola.
It was Babangida who squarely annulled June 12 election to perpetuate himself in power. He was the principal player, the referee and in fact everything as far as June 12 1993 was concerned.
All Babangida’s acts and actions while he was military head of state pointed to the fact that he wanted and wished to be head of state for life. Humphrey Nwosu must therefore apologize to Nigerians.
Ndiameeh Babrik,
Ndiame_2005@yahoo.co.uk
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