Ejiofor Alike
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Nsima Ekere has stated that the federal government’s modular refineries scheme, which the commission is one of the implementation agencies, would stop illegal refining of crude oil in the Niger Delta.
Ekere, who spoke to THISDAY on the heels of his Honorary Doctorate Degree award from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, on Saturday, noted that the concept of modular refinery is one of the key projects of the new initiatives on the Niger Delta driven by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
“The idea was to try and carry the interests of the respective local communities in the project. You see the idea of modular refinery; first of all, we want to stop illegal refining because of the attendant security and environmental issues that they bring. But if you stop it, don’t forget those people doing those illegal refining do not have the technical and financial capacity to get involved in the modular refining. That is where NDDC steps in so that the interest of the local community can be carried along,†Ekere explained.
“We have come up with all kinds of things like setting up cooperatives so that they will be part and parcel of what is going on. That is ongoing. One refinery that is to benefit from this collaboration almost immediately would be a modular refinery that was being fabricated by some private people, AMCON bought it over and so we are now talking in fact, NNPC, AMCON, NDDC and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB). The four of us are collaborating, trying to get that refinery in Akwa Ibom State up and running as soon as possible. So yes, it is ongoing; it is work in progress,†he added.
Ekere said one of the greatest challenges facing the Niger Delta was that the people were obsessed with false sense of entitlement.
The NDDC boss, who won the 2017 Public Service Award of The Sun Newspaper, added that his message to the stakeholders has always been that it is better to think of sustainable economic model that can empower the people.
“I don’t believe that you should just keep dashing them money – giving money to these people. There was a time at NDDC when there were like two – three protests every week, because when they come for the protest; when you are dispersing them they expect to be given some money. So anytime somebody is broke in his house, they will come and protest, so that something can come. I stopped that. I made protest unattractive. So, when they protest and come, you allow them stay there the whole day; you don’t give them money when they are going. So, gradually the number of protests began to reduce,†he added.
“So, the protests you see now, are protests that are sponsored by some politicians for their reasons. We know a couple, they had to sponsor protest, but ordinarily the genuine protesters that used to come on their own spontaneously that has drastically reduced – almost stopped because they know that when they come; when they are going back there will be no money to pay the buses that they hired to come unlike what used to happen in the past,†Ekere added.
