THE international oil and gas conference that Tell organised in Abuja was in celebration of 50 years of Nigeria’s export of crude oil. In keeping with the spirit of celebration, the lamentations about the devastations of oil, failed to pin point one crucial issue, how the Niger Delta would be the day oil runs out.
Speculations after the expiry date of Nigeria’s crude oil have been further distorted with more off-shore discoveries, the emerging importance of gas, the rising prices of crude in the international market and unsettling events in other parts of the world, which make Nigeria’s crude more attractive.
Few are ever emphatic that one day, oil will run out, totally .For Nigeria, it is unthinkable that there would be no oil. The more recent forays into gas also tie the country’s dependence more on oil and its ancillary products.
Without meaningful investments in any areas, with most of the oil producing areas despoiled to crushing poverty, with the atmosphere polluted beyond sustainable habitation, the end of oil would leave a trail of destruction that the country cannot bear. Unfortunately, the thinking in most quarters, is that this damage would be limited to the Niger Delta, the major reason for the scant attention paid to its development.
Experts are more embracing in their expectations from the environmental degrading that Nigeria’s antiquated oil production methods occasion. Despoliation of the rain forests, coastal erosions, destabilisation of the soil’s internal structures through the introduction of heavy equipment, gas flaring, the pollution from spillages, annihilation of aquatic lives, and denial of an economic life to the region’s teeming population, have combined consequences with global implications.
Oil’s importance as a prime source of energy can diminish in three ways – changes in technology that can result in cheaper, more environmental friendly sources of energy, discovery of more stable and safer sources of oil supply than the Niger Delta and the drying up of the wells, something that is often waved aside.
Even if oil does not run out in 10 years, its place in the scale of energy producing substances would not be forever. One factor that would keep oil relevant is the cost of changing all the technologies that are currently powered through oil-sourced energy, the other could be the huge investments in oil and gas, which the energy companies would want to recoup before they shift their focus to the new replacements for oil and gas.
When that day comes, would Nigeria have diversified her economy away from oil? Would Nigeria be in a position to pay for the new cost of energy? Would Nigeria’s present ancient technology find a place in the new world? What would the Niger Delta look like then?
The lesson is that we have to find other sources of revenue to run this country, before it is too late, while the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta, which has vastly lowered the quality of life, should be fixed quickly, not just by words.
