The Opening Of The Nigerian Guild Of Editors Conference, Holding At The Conference Centre, Asaba, 21st-24th August 2013
Protocol:
1. This is one occasion where I do not have to toil hard on protocol. The reason is simple: This is a media event. Put together by top media chieftains and hosted by us. That means by merely recognizing you as Gentlemen of the Press (no ladies, I am informed) instead of Your Excellencies, Honourable members of this or that, Chief So-so, I have discharged my protocol obligations.
2. Now since it is obviously a simple task, I therefore say, welcome to you all Gentlemen of the Press to Asaba, our state capital!
3. But I will not stop here. You know I am informed of a story about what happened in The Guardian at its inception. The Guardian if you remember, had a policy of addressing everyone as simply Mr. Whether you’re a professor this or that, or Dr. this or that or Chief this or that; in The Guardian you were addressed simply as Mr. or Miss or Mrs. No long titles. Such simplicity! Well it did happen, as the story goes, that a particular Chief, an employee of The Guardian did not like that policy, but had to comply, but did not miss to inform his bosses that: “you can address me as Mr., no problem I will answer, but should you decide to seek my daughter’s hand or seek to marry any of my relative, I will exercise full authority to be addressed by my full title or I will invoke sanctions!”
4. With this in mind Gentlemen of the Press, you will have to permit me to recognize some invited guests here, who may be like The Guardian Chief and would like to be addressed by their full titles. Some of us are very conscious of our titles which, it has to be said came out of the toil and sweat of our endeavours and the recognition that has brought.
5. That done, I want to say that it gives me great pleasure to receive you, here, as you deliberate on what I consider one of the most central concerns of the moment:Nigeria Beyond Oil, The Role of the Editor. As they say compliment is the sincerest form of flattery. We in Delta state feel flattered that the Nigerian Guild of Editors is keying into this initiative of thinking of Nigeria beyond oil, an adaption of ‘Delta Beyond Oil’ vision we have championed since assuming office six years ago. It means our message and accomplishments are getting out.
6. Are we prepared for life without oil? Even before that, should there be a collapse in the price of oil in the international market, can the governments and people of Nigeria cope? I shudder to think of the consequences.
7. I am happy this conference is organized by editors for editors. I hold editors, and, indeed all journalists, in high esteem. I see editors as highly educated men (otherwise how do they hope to educate the rest of the society?). I see you as highly principled and courageous with many having paid the price by the loss of their liberties at different points in our history.
8. An editor is a leader; he is an administrator and an executive. He has to combine these qualities and virtues to make success of the trust handed him by the society. The media men are the only professionals who have the constitutionally recognized role of keeping the country safe and sane.
9. Most times, he weighs what to write—what must be published or broadcast in the national interest and what to keep from the public consciousness also in the national interest. Well, one hazard I must not forget is that in this noble cause, when it suits some leaders, an Editor is a patriot, but when the same leaders come under the tough searchlight of the Editor, there is a backlash, the Editor is branded a villain. I guess you might say head you win, tail you lose.
10. I salute you as great contributors to the building of this country. The history of the struggle for Nigerian independence cannot be written without a good mention of the roles played by the Nigerian media and the writers and editors.
11. How can anyone quickly forget how the doyen of Nigerian nationalism, the great Herbert Macaulay used the West African Record to torment the colonialists? How can anyone possibly write the story of that era without paying tribute to the fearless contribution of Ernest Ikoli and the deep insights of Abiodun Aloba (Ebenezer Williams).
12. First generation nationalists and leaders like the legendary Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the great leader Chief Obafemi Awolowo were all products of your confraternity. Later, we had the likes of Chief Tony Enahoro, Chief Bisi Onabanjo of the Ayekooto fame, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Alhaji Babatunde Jose and our own Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Sam Amuka (Sad Sam), Nduka Obaigbena, etc., who all did and are doing great exploits through their pens and publications.
13. Nigeria Beyond Oil
The task and the challenge for your generation are to keep the flag flying. The themes of your discussions in the past eight conferences have been quite apt. This year’s, in my view, is the most appropriate. It is a call to duty. We are invited to pause and think, for a moment, about the future of our country without oil. Nigeria, as the World Bank Country Director, Ms. Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, told Economic Confidential, in a recent interview about Nigeria echoes the theme of this conference.
14. Her point, which I shall quote, is that: “So far, the government survives mainly with oil revenue, which accounts for over 90 per cent of exports and well over 70 per cent of consolidated government revenues. As oil resources are not indefinite, it is important for Nigeria to plan now what it wants to be after tomorrow.”
15. Speaking further, she said: “The issue is how Nigeria can use the available oil resources to invest and prepare itself for the non-oil economy period. We think the agricultural sector is very important for Nigeria. Today, Nigeria is importing 2.5 million tonnes of milled rice annually.
16. “With the projected population growth, in 20 years, Nigeria will need 35 million tonnes of milled rice. So will the country afford importing all this rice? This is why Nigeria needs to invest in agriculture, so that Nigerians can feed themselves in 20 years.
17. “Even if you continue to have oil, you may not have all the resources to import what would be needed to feed the population. Nigeria needs to put in place not only the infrastructure, road, electricity, but Nigeria needs to invest in agriculture.”
18. This comment is not new but reminds me of the golden years and the sad decline that set in as oil export began to displace agriculture. At Independence non-export was the main stay of our economy—from oil palm, cotton, cocoa, groundnuts, rubber, etc., this country made good economic progress. In structural terms non-oil export accounted for 80% of total exports between 1960-1970. In GDP terms, non-oil contributed 98.4%, while oil accounted for 1.6% as balance.
19. Looking at the two sector economy of oil and agriculture, you can say that trouble began in 1970 when oil contribution went to 17.94% and agriculture declined to 34%! The slide in agriculture continued such that by 1995 oil exports represented 97.3% of our total exports. Till date, oil export constitutes over 90% of our export revenue.
20. My point in stating the above is to remind us of when we started to derail. We stopped industrializing and we stopped expanding our agriculture output. What then resulted was decline in food production; shortage of raw materials, rapid monetary expansion not matched by domestic productivity. In addition we had and continue to have soil, water and air pollution, from oil production especially in the Niger Delta zone.
21. In all this, I am not saying that oil does not have its good side. It does. We have economic growth driven by oil export, infrastructure development from oil revenue, increase in national income, improved balance of payment, etc.
22. However, and this is the problem, it is clear that relying solely on oil export has narrowed our vision and opportunities to build a diversified and more prosperous country. Amidst oil export, Nigeria spends 1.3 trillion Naira on food imports every year, with our import bill rising by 11% annually. This is frightening. Oil dependency is quite clearly responsible for the high unemployment rate estimated at 23.9% amounting to about 40 million Nigerian youths from available data that are without jobs.
23. Youth unemployment has given me grey hairs as so many leaders across the world. In the news and around us, tight job market has remained a troubling issue. We just have to slay this monster. Another issue of increasing concern is the high population growth, which the World Bank country director, I quoted earlier referred to. The fact is that with 2.8% population growth Nigeria is sitting on a ‘population bomb’.
24. What we do not often realize and this can be crosschecked by anyone, no developed nation as we know it today had the same population growth as we currently have. In actual fact, economic historians are skeptical that industrisalisation would have succeeded in the West, if they had similar population growth.
25. Many Development theorists are clear on this: high population growth leads to deeper poverty, and deeper poverty leads to high fertility. It is a vicious circle, which should have no place in our economy.
26. Yet to escape the poverty trap, we simply have to improve our food production to support rapid population growth. We know that rising food production per capita was central to the success of the Asian tigers. And so as a Low Middle Income country, Nigeria with a gross national income per capita of about 1,500 dollars stands a great risk of being caught in bigger poverty trap, if it does not diversify her economy. This is why the theme of this conference is so important.
27. Why this is so urgent is that time is running out. No one knows how long high oil prices will continue to drive our economic growth, before it nosedives. Having lived with high oil price for too long, without diversification, we might have an equivalent of an economic Armageddon sooner than we expect.
28. Our oil production is threatened in two fronts. First, illegal bunkering and there is no shortage of the havoc this is doing. The International Energy Agency recently sounded the alarm that Nigeria had been losing about $7 billion annually to vandalisation of pipelines, oil theft and illegal bunkering. The chairman of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparent Initiative, Mr. Ledum Mitee said recently while presenting the organisation’s Audit Report of the Oil and Gas sector that, between 2009 and 2011, the country lost about $11 billion to activities of oil thieves. The figures may differ but the sums are huge.
29. Nigeria crude oil production is also facing another challenge with the discovery of alternative in Shale gas. Right now that resource is evolving and it is believed that in future as the technology to explore it matures; it will become more commercially successful and a real competition to the crude oil in the international energy market.
30. For us in Delta state, at least this administration, we were very clear in our mindfrom the beginning that we must do whatever we can to initiate programmes to protect and diversify the economy of the state. This is in spite of the fact that Delta State accounts for 30 percent of national oil production and export with oil and gas accounting for 65 percent of our GDP and 85 percent of our revenue from federal allocation. From 2007 when we came into office, we articulated our programme with the intention of investing in critical infrastructure (social and economic) that can expand our economy beyond oil.
31. Distinguish listeners, though it was our focus to get this programme fully implemented, but one point has to be stressed here, diversification is both possible but not easy to achieve. It does not happen automatically but we know it can be done and we are determined to do our bit. My hope is that the next administration will see the wisdom to sustain and continuously invest in further expanding the infrastructure and human capital development that is abundant in the state.
32. What we know and which is why we are so determined in the direction we are pushing is that it is clear that economic development in Delta State is going to be shaped greatly by its location (as an emerging regional hub) with access to the sea through the Warri seaport, two airports, several dualised roads forming strategic network grid interconnecting the two growth poles of Warri and Asaba, with the many urban and riverine areas.
33. We were also clear in our mind that for economic growth to be impactful, it has to be inclusive. Deltans must feel they have a government that cares about them. Deltans must feel the impact of government wherever they reside. We were careful to avoid anything remotely suggesting lopsided development.
34. And so in building Delta beyond oil, it was obvious we must invest in some key infrastructure such as the 250 megawatts Oghareki power plant, which we hope to commission late 2014. We have major investments in generation and distributions companies that have just been privatized. We have invested in NIPP power plants that have also been privatized. We are attracting international partnership to pursue aggressively opportunities in renewable energy. We are developing both policy and regulatory framework to give comfort and attract investment into our renewable energy sector.
35. The heavy investment in power infrastructure is because it is economically profitable to do so and secondly, we know that it is just the right way to guarantee energy security we urgently need to give Deltans power and to support our industrial base.
36. Our Asaba airport project is now at a finishing point; this airport is easily the best in the country and hopefully in future can become one of the busiest and most profitable. Its location makes it an airport to watch in the future. I am certain that its completion is at the centre of the rapid growth and urbanization of Asaba capital city.
37. The Osubi airport improvement project is on course. We are spending considerable sums of money to build a 4km runway and upgrade the terminal building to become one of the best in the country. Osubi serves the Warri commercial hub and the oil industry sector located in that area.
38. So far I can say that our road infrastructure programme has been a resounding success. Since coming into office as an administration in 2007, we have constructed over 1,006 kilometres of roads bringing the total length of roads in the state to 3,236 kilometres, well on course to meeting our vision 2020 target of a minimum of 5000 kilometres of new roads.
39. We have also made good progress in our educational programmes. So far we have either built or rehabilitated over 18,000 classrooms, many of them built to international standard (a prototype of our model school is right across this conference centre). Education in Delta state is virtually free. Our first class scholarship scheme stands out as an outstanding success with 150 recipients studying at various schools abroad. We pay N 20,000 bursary awards to students of Delta state origin in every institution of higher learning across the country.
40. Our liberal programmes of support extend to the healthcare sector, where we affect lives in so many ways. We have free maternal healthcare, we have free under5 healthcare, we have free rural healthcare that offers treatment of patients with both medical and surgical conditions.
41. Even in the transport sector, we are funding the people, we have buses of various sizes that have 50% subsidy.
42. When I talked about inclusive development, it is through these programmes we seek to touch our people at the various points of their need. We use these programmes to redistribute income and to support many of our people who may have been left to suffer unduly.
43. Our micro credit schemes have been a great success, giving financial support to small and micro entrepreneurs, many of whom without micro credit would not have started their small businesses. Today, the micro credit scheme has over 100,000 beneficiaries and from itssuccess, it is obvious the poor are not a credit risk, if properly organized. Indeed, some of the beneficiaries are migrating to small and medium scale enterprises, with some already exporting their products abroad.
44. Our agriculture programme is driven by a combination of our strategic partnership with big agro-based companies like Obasanjo Farms, by our big push strategy of setting up of agro-based processing facilities in fish meals and cassava pallets. These processing facilities are in collaboration with some private investors and the farmers’ association. We are also giving support to our famers in terms of inputs, subsidies and by deliberately building infrastructure like roads to farming communities, to ease access to markets and movement of their produce.
45. Our industrial programme is anchored on setting up special economic zones and construction of industrial parks. In partnership with the Federal Government through the NNPC, Delta State is the host to the multi-billion dollar Gas Based Industrial programme. The GBI aims to host a Central Processing Facility (CPF), fertilizer and petrochemical plants as a strategy to convert gas into economic assets.
46. The Warri Industrial Business Park (WIBP) conceived by the state as a plug and play model is to enable companies and investors to share common services and to establish their plants with minimal hassles. That project in partnership with the private sector is on course and has elicited huge interest from the business community. When it takes off, the WIBP promises to be a commercial success.
47. We are also through our Economic Advisory Team headed by Mr. Bismarck Rewane in the process of reviving moribund industries.
48. We are also building the Asaba ICT Park, which the Federal Government through the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) has shown interest and is already constructing a major facility there. Around the state, there are so many investors that have shown interest, some are already setting up plants while some have advanced in their plans to do so in the near future.
49. As I round up, I want to make the point that the ultimate success of Delta State Beyond Oil, can only be assured if the economy of the state is linked to international trade and this is why it so important to have the full activation of Warri port.
50. I want to note that though activities at the Warri port have picked up but the challenge of access has to be fully addressed. We appeal to the federal authorities to direct the NPA to speed up work in the dredging of the channel to the port.
51. Before going back to my seat, I want to place on record that our administration fully endorse and support the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration. Some of the issues and challenges I earlier highlighted are clearly being tackled by his administration and I am satisfied he is making good progress to end Nigeria over reliance on oil.
What Role For The Editor?
52. The Delta State administration and the Federal administration share a common desire and will to build an economy beyond oil. As your theme suggests, it is my view that the ultimate success of Nigeria Beyond oil initiative, rest in the joint partnership of government and the Nigerian people with the Nigerian Editors mediating through constant education of the people about the importance and the sacrifices that have to be made if we are to succeed in our quest.
53. I must confess that carrying the media along in our determination to develop our “Delta Beyond Oil Economic Model” has not been easy. I am aware that Chief Executives at various levels of governance are assessed by projects. Whether the projects has relevance to any economic activity or not does not matter. For us in Delta however, all our activities are programmes rather than mere projects. For instance, we had to take on the dualisation of the 149km Federal Road between Asaba and Ughelli because it is the shortest connection between Warri Port and Onitsha market, two economically active centres in Nigeria. We do hope that when it is completed, importers in Onitsha market will use the Warri Port more and ports that are farther, less. It is therefore imperative, that in assessing the progress of any administration the Editor has to look at the programmes, rather than just projects, and then educate our people appropriately.
54. Again, though there are low hanging fruits in actualising the ‘Beyond Oil Economy’, the Editor should understand that some of the infrastructure required to attract investors to other areas of the economy are expensive and take quite some time to actualise. Power plants for instance are not cheap and take time to establish. Therefore, the Editor and by extension the media should help to educate the people and guide them to be patient.
55. Gentlemen of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, it is on this note that I want to once again welcome you to Asaba and wish you fruitful deliberations.
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Office of the Governor
Government House
Asaba, Delta State.
August, 2013.
