IfeanyiIzeze<\/p>\n
To say that theposition of this government on several issues is
\ngetting more and moreworrisome by the day is an understatement. Walai, it
\nis difficult to understandhow the minds of our people in government work.
\nHow do you reconcile that in acountry where there is no money (as we were
\ntold) to pay workers salaries or toalleviate the suffering of the masses
\nmajority of whom cannot even eat once ina day, we are talking of spending
\nbillions of naira (either already earmarkedor to be raised) to pump into
\nfinding oil by force?<\/p>\n
Is it not thissame government that boasts everyday
\nthat they want to diversify the economyfrom oil that now is busy plotting
\nto drain billions on wildcatting which isnothing but outright kalo
\nkalo(gambling)? For a countrythat is in an economic crisis largely because
\nof its dependence on oil, andgiven the public push for a drastic upscale
\nof diminutive non-oil sectors ofthe economy, how is the pursuit of oil in
\nthe north now our national priority? \u00a0When are we going to begin to
\nthinkdifferently?<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s oil exploration efforts smack of the
\nkind of freeoil- money-obsession that brought Nigeria to its present
\nsituation.It is really curiousthat President Mohammadu Buhari actually
\nordered the NNPC to embark on thisventure but it\u2019s even more curious that
\nthe new NNPC group managing director,Maikanti Baru, could be insensitive
\nenough to be dangling the president\u2019s namein a statement that is most
\nlikely to portray him as sectionally -minded. Couldit have carried lesser
\nweight if the NNPC boss had hinged the decision torecommence oil search in
\nthe north on his corporation rather than dangling thename of the
\npresident? It is veryunfortunate that in this country, intellectuals who
\nshould be better informed regressto technical and economic apostasy just
\nto satisfy the whims and caprices oftheir bosses (politicians) in
\nGovernment?<\/p>\n
The Chad Basin has been repeatedly prospectedfor oil for well
\nover three decades at great cost to the NNPC and in turn thecountry. No
\noil was ever found in viable or commercial quantities. Political searchfor
\noil will never find a single drop of producible oil. Just mark my word! It
\nwillonly end up wasting scarce and highly needed funds which we should be
\ndeployingin other sectors to strengthen our economy especially that of the
\nnortheastregion and enable our people stand gainfully engaged rather
\nsitting and waitingto rush to RMAFC in Abuja for doles.If the aim ofthis
\nproposal is to leverage on developing the northeast region as feigned
\nbyour leaders, why is the government not focusing on leveraging Renewable
\nEnergy,Manufacturing and Agriculture in the region?<\/p>\n
These sectors are much
\nmoresustainable and capable of creating shared development and a rapid one
\ntoorather than the wild goose chase for oil in our present economic
\ncircumstance.As disclosed byexperts, with an average solar irradiation of
\n2,400 kWh\/m2, the Northeast (ChadBasin) region is one of the areas in the
\nworld best primed for investment inSolar power which would undoubtedly
\nsolve the region\u2019s worst-in-the-countrypower situation on one hand and
\nthat of the entire country on the other.<\/p>\n
Closelyaligned to power\u00a0generation is the manufacturing sector, and for a region thatborders four
\nother countries there are few better places to cite amanufacturing hub for
\nhigh export gains and extended market opportunities.Why are we nottalking
\non massively investing on radically reversing the water loss of theLake
\nChad to curb the current high hunger and poverty rates across that
\nregion,reignite economic growth and development and put more people to
\nwork than planningon draining the huge sums of money in search for oil- a
\nventure that is at best,mere gambling?<\/p>\n
For the first time in my writing,let
\nme talk as a well-trained geologist because it is only by inquiring on
\nthebasic, yet elemental geologic dynamics of the Chad Basin area of
\nNigeria thatone can be able to say for certain if the \u201cparameters\u201d for oil
\noccurrence inthat basin is fully met and then persuade our politicians to
\nsimply stay awayfrom issues of oil search in the basin and others adjacent
\nto it includingBauchi Basin leaving it for the experts to handle.<\/p>\n
The magic
\nparameters for oiloccurrence in any basin, as we were taught in
\nundergraduate petroleum geologyare the concurrent existence of these
\nfactors: the source rock, the reservoirrock, migration pathway, geothermal
\ntemperature and traps which could bestructural or stratigraphic.Pure
\ngeology has it that thestratigraphic sequence (rock arrangement) of the
\nChad Basin ensued from theunconformable deposition of the Cenomanian Bima
\nSandstone over the Pre-CambrianBasement Complex rocks. Atop the Bima
\nSandstone is the Turonian GongilaFormation, succeeded by the Senonian Fika
\nShales, which is also in turnsucceeded by the Maestrichtian to Pleistocene
\nGombe Sandstone, Keri-KeriFormation and Chad Formation in that
\norder.Without doubt, the Chad Basin,where only one-tenth of its area lie
\nin Nigeria offers possible source rocks,reservoir rocks and
\nmigration\/structural pathway.<\/p>\n
Fika Shales is a likelysource rock, and its
\nimmediate succession, Gombe Sandstone, could serve as atremendous
\nreservoir rock. The large scale Cretaceous folds in the form ofanticlinal
\nand synclinal folds\u2014thanks to geophysical survey data from the areacould
\nmake encouraging traps for occurrence of oil. More so the depth at
\nwhichGombe Sandstone is supposedly located around the Lake Chad area could
\ngiveenough geothermal temperature of 120-150 degrees centigrade which
\nsupports oilformation.Beforenow, The NNPC has generated over 30,000 well
\nlogs scanned and vectorised. Also,23 exploratory wells have been drilled.
\nHowever, all the wells turned out to bea harvest of \u201cdry holes.\u201d\u00a0 Only two
\nofthe wells, Wadi-1 and Kinasar encountered non- commercial gas that could
\nbestbe described as \u201cflashes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thoughit is very unprofessional
\n(geologically) to be categorical that there is no oilin our portion of the
\nChad Basin as there is a possibility that we may find oilin commercial
\nquantity in the region because of the discoveries of commercialhydrocarbon
\ndeposits in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Sudan whichhave
\nsimilar structural settings with the Nigerian portion of the Chad
\nBasin.However, youcannot wish geology into place, no matter the amount of
\npolitics orsupplications to God in the churches or mosques.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That we have
\nportions of ChadBasins in Nigeria does not mean oil must be in our own
\nsection. Even in the oilbearing geologic Niger Delta, it is not all
\nsections of the region that bearsoil notwithstanding that they all have in
\nfull the same stratigraphic settingof Akata (source rock); Agbada
\n(reserviour rock); and Benin Formations.The politicianswould not agree
\nwith this because they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the duty of the
\nexpertsparticularly the NNPC people to educate some of our politicians on
\nthis.Up till now,what can the Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC)
\nsay they have achievedin the oil bloc \u2018OPL 809\u2019 assigned to them apart
\nfrom leveraging on politickingwith some flashes of \u201cgas shows\u201d discovered
\nelsewhere by Shell Frontiers inother concessions outside our portion of
\nthe basins both Chad and Bauchi? When arewe going to start facing everyday
\nissues that are pressing our people and stopthis unnecessary politicking
\nwith everything that makes us look an unseriouscountry in the eyes of the
\noutside world? God bless Nigeria!(IFEANYI IZEZE lives in Abuja:
\niizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IfeanyiIzeze To say that theposition of this government on several issues is getting more and moreworrisome by the day is an understatement. Walai, it is difficult to understandhow the minds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n