PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is to meet with stakeholders in the Niger Delta next week as part of a desperate government plan to end violence in the region and put an end to the ongoing disruption of crude oil production.
Over the last year, militancy has returned to the Niger Delta, with several militant groups blowing up pipeline and installations. In a bid to end the violence and disruption, the government has proposed talks but so far, several sticking issues have prevented negotiations from taking place.
Yesterday, however, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, the minister of state for petroleum, revealed that President Buhari would meet with stakeholders from the region in the presidential villa on Tuesday to help end the crisis. He explained that the stakeholders that would attend the meeting would include traditional rulers from the region, security chiefs as well as ministers who were indigenes of the Niger Delta region.
Dr Kachikwu said: “On Tuesday, the president will be meeting with the Niger Delta stakeholders of the oil-producing areas. It is important that we continue to sustain the institutional engagement and negotiations that are key to do this work.
“Our target is to have an incident reduction by 90% by 2018 and to target zero militancy and shutdown by middle of 2017. Whatever shutdown experienced by the middle of next year, we expect it to be production slippages and not militancy issues, so we must resolve current militancy problems and bring back production to 2.2m barrels per day from the current 1.8m barrels."
He added that Nigeria has the capacity to increase crude oil output to 3m barrels per day, if her funding is sorted out. At the meeting, President Buhari admitted that oil and gas resources remained the most practical key out of the nation’s current economic crisis.
In addition, he said although the era of high oil prices might not be here now, the petroleum industry remained critical to the nation’s economy now and in the future. Tagged the 7Big Wins, the president revealed a roadmap about the short and medium term priorities to grow Nigeria’s oil and gas industry between 2015 and 2019.
“Oil and gas still remain a critical enabler for the successful implementation of our budget, as well as the source of funds for laying a strong foundation for a new and more diversified economy. As important as it is to ensure that agriculture, solid minerals and other critical sectors of the economy are supported to grow and contribute more to the nation’s economy, we still need a virile and efficient oil and gas industry to take care of our foreign exchange requirements, President Buhari added.
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