RESEARCH: How to Harness Nigeria's Natural Resourses

By Fred Doc Nwaozor

        

It has ostensibly become compelling for Nigeria as a country to look inwards towards discovering her entire natural resources with a view to harnessing them for a greater nationhood.

        

Some of the common natural resources on earth are land, water, sunlight, atmosphere, wind, coupled with animal life and vegetation. A natural resource may exist as a separate entity like fresh water and air as well as a living organism such as fish, or it might exist in an alternate form, which must be processed to obtain the required resource to include petroleum, metal, ores, and most forms of energy.

         

It’s noteworthy that some, including air and sunlight, can be found everywhere, and are known as ‘ubiquitous resources’. Whilst, most resources only occur in restricted areas, and are referred to as ‘localized resources’.

        

There are very few resources that are considered inexhaustible – these are solar radiation, geothermal energy, and air, though access to pure air may not be possible. The vast majority of resources are theoretically exhaustible, which means they have a finite quantity and can be depleted if improperly managed; a good example of this is petroleum. Such finite resources required a sound policy and regulation, to be implemented by the concerned government, towards their preservation.

         

It’s pertinent to acknowledge that every manmade product consists of one or two natural resources. Suffice it to say that everything required or used by mankind constitute of, at least, a natural resource. In most cases, some of these resources such as air and water, are directly utilized or consumed by man without processing them.

          

The above outlined phenomenon proves beyond doubts that humankind cannot survive or strive successfully, as the case may be, without natural resources. This assertion is not unconnected with the reason every rational government makes frantic effort toward adequate use and preservation of the natural resources found within its country.

         

In Nigeria, hundreds of natural resources abound, in which each state including Abuja is a beneficiary. Some of these resources are petroleum, tantalite, lead, zinc, glass-sand, copper, gemstone, crystal, oil/gas, bitumen, phosphate, gold, coal, clay, salt, gypsum, iron-ore, uranium, and limestone, in addition to sunlight, wind, land, water, vegetation and air that are ubiquitous in nature.

          

Some of the aforementioned substances can enable any country to massively embark on agriculture, and attain to any desired height. Nigeria does not possess just land, but a well fertile land that can produce crops in any quantity and quality. Its vegetation and atmosphere is equally invariably good enough to raise every kind of animal life, including wildlife.

          

Though crop and livestock farming used to be the talk of the day in the Nigerian society, it’s sad to note that currently such lucrative occupation is being relegated to the background owing to over-reliance on mono-resource, petroleum. It’s really high time we as a people desisted from this irritating high level of dependency that has eaten deep into our socio-economic bone marrow.

         

Proper utilization of clay alone can take the country’s tourism industry, that’s presently moribund, to enviable heights. Same is applicable to the use of other similar compounds or metals that are in abundance across the federation, to include uranium, limestone, and gold. In the same vein, it is disheartening that an essential mineral resource like coal has, over the decades, been swept under the carpet; coal can be used to produce energy, both in the form of heat and electricity.

          

It’s mind-boggling to hear that a country like Nigeria that can boast of abundant sunlight, wind and what have you, is still battling on how to generate steady and reliable electricity, whilst countries like U.S.A blessed with just limited amount of the resources, are experiencing uninterruptible power supply. Away from energy; it could be observed that our forest reserves that could produce enough timber for importation, are currently wearing a pathetic physiognomy as a result of docile policies.

          

Indeed, Nigeria is densely endowed with various lucrative natural resources, but it’s very sad that the governments at all levels are not doing enough as regards the adequate use and conservation of the resources; hence, this calls for drastic turnaround via deployment of genuine political will. Now that the sale of oil and gas is no longer booming, it’s high time we retraced our steps toward ensuring that each of the available resources is thoroughly harnessed for the needed economic emancipation.

          

Crude oil ought to also be regularly renewed. We can clean used oil by using pretty conventional refinery technologies. The first step is vacuum distillation, which dewaters the oil. Then, we do wiped-film evaporation; this essentially separates out all the contaminants and additives inherent in it.

         

Finally, it would go through a hydro-treating process, which infuses hydrogen back into the hydrogen molecules and makes it very high quality re-refined oil. This routine can be sustained via a sound policy, hence the need for the government to concentrate on the needful.

          

The government really needs to ensure adequate conservation and sustenance of these natural resources, through implementation of strict and viable policies cum laws, and their proper enforcement. Most of these policies such as Land Use and Forests Reserve Acts, which were duly upheld in the past, are presently abused or overlooked in various quarters.

         

We need to urgently revive them, make apt amends where necessary, as well as introduce new ones toward attaining a greater nationhood. Think about it!

Comrade Nwaozor, researcher and activist, could be

reached via frednwaozor@gmail.com

Twitter: @mediambassador

      

Analysis I Fashola and his Gimmick on 2023

By Fred Doc Nwaozor

 

        

Penultimate week – precisely on Thursday, 25^th October 2018 – the erstwhile Lagos State governor and the present Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola enjoined the people of the Nigeria’s South-West to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming 2019 elections towards guaranteeing a return of power to the zone in 2023.

        

The minister tendered this in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital at a special town hall meeting on infrastructure organized by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture headed by Alhaji Lai Mohammed in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

         

Alhaji Lai led three other ministers including Fashola as well as Ministers of Transportation and Water Resources in the persons of Messrs Rotimi Amaechi and Suleiman Adamu, respectively, to the meeting which had in attendance key stakeholders from the area.

          

Mr. Fashola opined that besides the massive investment by the Buhari-led government on infrastructure across the country, South-West in particular, the zone would benefit politically by re-electing Buhari come 2019.

          

He stated in Yoruba language “Do you know that power is rotating to the South-West after the completion of Buhari’s tenure if you vote for him in 2019? A vote for Buhari in 2019 means a return of power to the South-West in 2023. I am sure you will vote wisely.”

         

It’s not anymore news that on several occasions, some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the South-East had boasted that President Buhari would be handing over power to the zone in 2023 if he gets votes from the people of the area come 2019. How then do we reconcile these contradicting gimmicks?

          

By this statement, Mr. Fashola has inadvertently concurred with the line of action of his predecessor, Chief Bola Tinubu. In recent times, the latter has been putting up behaviours that indicate he is aspiring to take over power from President Buhari. His body language suggests he’s warming up to succeed the sitting president whenever his service expires.

          

It’s quite intriguing that Mr. Fashola never minded the political implications of such an utterance before letting it out. This implies that the people of the South-West under the auspices of the APC cannot afford to allow any other zone or region succeeds Buhari when he bows out from Aso Rock.

         

If my thought is as good as yours, then you would agree with me that the APC’s gladiators of the South-East extraction have been deceiving themselves by going about telling their kinsmen and beyond that power would freely return to them after the tenure of Buhari.

         

One may even assert that the aforementioned set of people isn’t only deceiving but making ‘fool’ of itself. This is so, because, the way and manner they parade themselves as regards who, or which zone, succeeds Buhari appear as if a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) had already been reached and duly signed by the overall leadership of the APC.

         

This categorically informs that the Igbos need to wake up from slumber. It’s indeed high time they began thinking of how to become more politically aware in the Nigeria’s sphere. It’s obvious that overtime the people from the Igbo nation have been used as sacrificial lamb whenever it calls for acquiring power within the country’s political terrain.

         

They must realize to the fullness that power is taken, not given. No rational politician ought to expect power, no matter how lowly placed, to be granted or released to him/her on a platter of gold. Everyone is expected to ‘fight’ towards acquiring power or assuming any political post. Thus, one who believes that such position would willingly and freely be ceded to him is simply daydreaming.

         

However, Mr. Fashola would have at least considered the consequences of such announcement especially at this era when the ruling party is making frantic effort to remain in power come 2019. And acknowledging that the major opposition party – the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – is damn prepared to reclaim the country’s seat of power, which they regrettably vacated in 2015.

        

Mr. Fashola, therefore, ought to have understood that such an avowal is liable to make the APC massively lose its prospective voters, particularly from the South-East. He should have realized that it is a sentence that has the tendency of causing the ruling party a grievous harm in the nearest future.

        

Having made the statement in vernacular, he might had thought that outsiders wouldn’t take note of it, forgetting the country at large is at the moment in a heat period regarding politics, hence an average Nigerian is currently far more socio-politically aware than he/she was just few months ago.

         

The utterance in question may have been erroneously and carelessly tendered by the honourable minister, but the point remains that it ought to be considered as an eye-opener by the members of the APC of the Igbo extraction. Even if it’s eventually retracted, it has already sent the message being required by the Igbos at such a critical time like this.

          

Notwithstanding, whatever the case might be, it’s time our politicians started being very mindful of what they utter in the public domain especially when campaigning for votes. Think about it!

-Comrade Nwaozor, policy analyst & rights activist,

could be reached via frednwaozor@gmail.com

Follow: @mediambassador            

  

JUST IN: As Strike Looms, ASUU, SSANU Get Ready