Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State has declared that the state government may consider the option of establishing a ministry of petroleum resources or appointment of a special adviser for mineral and petroleum resources if the technical reports obtained from the first state geological summit held in Abeokuta, at the week, favours the creation of such ministry.
The governor’s statement on the establishment of petroleum resources ministry in the state followed the call made earlier by Joseph Ajayi, a geologist and a professor from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, who talked on petroleum and hydrocarbon prospects in the state, saying different reports had shown the state having prospects for petroleum and hydrocarbon deposits.
He said: “The first hydrocarbon occurencies in Nigeria were reported from tar seeps of South Western Nigeria, near Ijebu-Ode, at the beginning of the last century… The revenue allocation formula in the country favours oil-producing states because of the derivation principle that applied to reaource production.”
He, therefore, asked “Ogun State to liaise with NNPC for the access to petroleum and hydrocarbon.”
But the governor, who was represented at the summit organised by Ogun State Geological Service Department, and tagged: “Mineral Exploitation: A Tool for Rebuilding the State,” by Bimbo Ashiru, commissioner for commerce and industry, said the governor and his cabinet would look at the reports at the end of the summit and act accordingly.
“What we are going to do is that the summary of this report will be handed over to the governor so that if there is need to set up ministry of petroleum resources or probably have a special adviser to handle that,” he said.
While speaking on the governor’s efforts to fully explore the mineral and natural resources in the state in order to raise the internally-generated revenue, he said, “what I can tell you is that when we came in, they (geological service department) were making only N40 million – N50 million per annum.
“What they have been able to do is to turnaround the paradigm shift and they have been able to increase the IGR by 1,287.7 percent. So, that shows that they know what they are doing. They only need encouragement which is what we are doing now.
“This is the first time we are doing this and it has really shown that by the time we look at the mineral and natural resources we have in Ogun State, we will be able to achieve so many things. We can be rest assured that next year, they will do more than what they did this year and I am saying that this year, they are going to do almost N1 billion as IGR.”
RAZAQ AYINLA
