As this petrol crisis forces us to start thinking about alternative and clean energy, our long term outlook should be Nigeria Beyond Oil. That should involve placing a moratorium on drilling

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Back in 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Deep Offshore Act into law. That law basically increased our dependence on crude oil revenue and is only going to lead to a greater scramble for off-shore oil wells going forward

[2] This latest petrol crisis has shown that this kind of dependence on fossil fuels is not sustainable over the long term. I hope President Tinubu uses his two week vacation in the UK to brainstorm and come up with a coherent Nigeria Beyond Oil strategy

[3] Were we a forward-thinkig people, back in 2019, our National Assembly would have debates imposing a moratorium on oil prospecting and drilling across Nigeria when it debated President Buhari’s bill

[4] Are we aware of the fact that the US has banned the drilling for oil in Alaska? It is now illegal to prospect or drill for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

[5] In 2018, New Zealand announced plans to ban the award of new oil and gas exploration licences in an effort to combat climate change and promote the development of green energy sources

[6] In September 2017, the French Parliament announced plans to introduce legislation to phase out all oil and gas production by 2040, coinciding with the country’s scheduled ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles

[7] In February 2918, Denmark’s energy, utilities and climate minister Lars Christian Lilleholt that his government would be ceasing to grant permits for the exploration and drilling of oil, natural gas and shale gas following more than 80 years of activity

[8] In December 2017, Belize’s legislature unanimously approved a bill to ban all future offshore developments within the country’s territories. In July 2014, Costa Rica’s President Luis Guillermo Solís extended the country’s ban on petroleum exploration and extraction.

[9] In February 2018, Ireland’s lower house of parliament, the Dáil Éireann, voted to support legislation to stop the Irish government from providing new contracts for on-shore and offshore oil and gas exploration action

[10] We simply do not know what we are doing in Nigeria. The more dependent we are on oil, the less likely we are to industrialise. Crude oil is a huge disincentive to economic diversification, industrialisation, the fiscal self-reliance of our federating units and general prosperity. We recently discovered new oil reserves in the River Gongola Basin and jumped in to rape the environment. It is not even as if oil gives us that much anyway. Who is to say that revenue from agriculture in the Gongola Basin alone cannot surpass the paltry $25bn we generate from crude oil sales annually?

Ayoakinfe@gmail.com