- Says Initiative ‘ll Help Address Youths Unemployment, fast-track Devt
To help address issues of youths unemployment, and enhance a sustained atmosphere of peace and harmony in the Niger Delta region, the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has urged oil and gas companies operating in the region to give utmost consideration to the idea of locating their business operating headquarters in the Niger Delta region.
Omo-Agege who doubles as chairman of the Senate Committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution averred that this initiative would help provide employment opportunities for jobless youths, guarantee effective peace, and ensure an environment of sustainable development in the crisis-prone region.
According to Omo-Agege, this development if adopted would make the realization of the production target of 1.86 million barrels per day as indicated in the federal government’s 2021 budget much plausible, and very feasible. The Deputy Senate President made the case while speaking at Senate plenary Wednesday.
He said, ” for oil companies who explore oil in these communities to help in creating jobs for these people and the only way they can do this is to have their business operating headquarters located in the Niger Delta.”
He added: “This 2021 budget proposal is based on two predicates. The first is the 40-dollar benchmark and the second is the oil production estimate of 1.86 million barrels per day.
“Like I indicated in the debate for the 2020 budget, for us to be able to achieve this 1.86 million barrels per day, certain things must be in place. We must have peace and indeed, maintain the peace in the Niger Delta region.
“For those of us that represent the region, we are very worried for these are the people that represent the goose that lays the golden eggs that take care of the this economy . But, majority of them are jobless; there is nothing for them.
“That is why we maintain that the youth in these communities must be engaged and the only way they can be engaged is for these oil companies who explore oil in these communities to help in creating jobs for these people and the only way they can do this is to have their business operating headquarters located in the Niger Delta.”
Recall that the crises in the Niger Delta region have defied many lasting attempts at building a sustainable atmosphere of peace, harmony and development for many years.
Recall also that since oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in Oilobri in present day Bayelsa state in the late 1950s, the oil-rich Delta region has been a terrain characterized by oil and gas exploitation activities, triggering both environmental degradation, youths unemployment and agitations over absence of critical infrastructure.
To address this and related issues, successive governments since colonial times have come up with what various programmes which many analysts consider as mere palliatives.
Some of these initiatives include the Willinks Commission of pre-independence era which was set up by the colonial government to help initiate a development model for the special terrain known as the Niger Delta region.
This was followed through by successive post-independence governments models which culminated in the setting up various initiatives including Niger Delta Development Board, OMPADEC, NDDC, Presidential Amnesty programme, etc.
Experts believe that some of these initiatives should be complimented by plausible moves on the part of oil companies operating in the oil-rich Delta region to site their business operating headquarters in the region.
