The best gift Buhari can give to the North is to get its oil flowing

As someone who still tries to defend President Muhammadu Buhari, I am currently finding it extremely difficult to continue defending him. Most of his appointments have been skewed towards the North. Sadly, this is not the best way to help the North.

Actually, empirical evidences show that, in most cases in Nigeria, the biggest beneficiaries are the friends and relatives of those who have been given ‘juicy’ appointments. And not the vast majority of indigent northerners. Interestingly, these poor northerners have been very loyal to the President, right from his days in ANPP and CPC.

There are fundamental issues the President needs to address if he wants to be remembered forever in the North. And what are these issues?

These issues are structural, and very fundamental to the prosperity of the North. One, why is it that a vandalized pipeline in Warri affects electricity supply in Kano? This shouldn’t be. Two, how economical and safe is it to continue pumping crude from the Niger Delta to Kaduna Refinery? Three, can gas power plants be efficiently run in the North, considering the distance you need to pump gas from? Note that solar and hydropower plants are not as reliable as gas-fired power plants. Even the countries campaigning for renewable energies will still have a vast proportion of their energy supply from fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.

These issues make the North an energy poor region. And energy poverty impacts on a region’s ability to create wealth. This can be seen in many northern states.

Let’s take Yobe, for example. Last year, it generated N2.2 billion as its internally generated revenue, but it received N57.4 billion as allocation from Abuja in the same year. Compare this to Rivers State – the state generated N82.1 billion in the period under review. Certainly, the notion that some northern states are living off the South will exist, and continue to fuel animosity. This is a recipe for increased agitations.

The North is eager to diversify, but no region can diversify without energy. Having succeeded in weakening Boko Haram, the President should ensure that the North is energy sufficient. The North actually doesn’t need to export its energy, when it develops it.

The President needs to pursue this vigorously. Luckily, there are no significant opposition to the President’s plan to pump in money into oil exploration in the North, despite the fact that huge sums have been set on fire prospecting for oil in the past in the region.

Some years ago, a joint venture between the NNPC and Chevron drilled about 23 wells in the North, and couldn’t strike oil. In fact, some reports have it that over $3 billion (about 1 trillion naira, using today’s black market exchange rate) have been burnt prospecting for oil in northern inland basins.

But the President is still adamant – there are sufficient reasons to be. By the end of the year, the NNPC will start drilling wells in the Chad Basin. The cooperation says it now has ample evidences to show that there are significant hydrocarbon deposits in the Chad Basin, overlying Borno.

Despite all the futile attempts to find oil in this basin, an unexplored area called Kukawa might just be the game-changer. All geological data point to significant deposit in this region. Other parts of this basin in Chad have prolific oil wells.

And even Lake Chad, which is currently drying up and posing a serious concern to the President, has significant oil deposit.

There are other northern inland basins that are likely to have large deposits of oil. For example, the Bida Basin, in Niger State, has a lot of similarities with the Anambra Basin, which has significant oil deposits.

This year, the President has budgeted over N39 billion for oil exploration in the North. Even if conventional oil are not found in these basins, with increased spending, unconventional oil could be found in the North. Shale oil and gas in America are unconventional resources.

It is only a rich North that will be interested in true federalism. A neighborhood with rich families living close to each other is more likely to be peaceful. Obviously, a neighborhood with poor and rich families living side by side is likely to be prone to rancour and jealousy.

It is only when the North can sustain itself that the call for resource control will make sense to them. With this in mind, the President’s plan to pump money into oil exploration in the North might not be out of place. The recently appointed GMD of NNPC, Maikanti Baru, will surely work very hard to get the North’s oil flowing. I think so.

My thesis is this: In order not to make the call for resource control to look like an academic exercise, there should be concerted efforts to make the North energy independent, especially if we still want to live together as one united country.