By the twilight of 2024, Nigeria had achieved 56 percent local content participation in the oil and gas sector. Data from the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, tells the story. This represents a massive leap forward but octogenarian Dan Etete, the hero of this turnaround in the nation’s oil and gas annals, has remained largely unsung. Instead, he has been vilified and made to appear as the villain in a critical sector where he dared to brave the odds stacked against indigenous participation.
January this year, Etete turned 80. The outpouring of encomiums for the ‘Ndagbudu Keme Keni of Izon-Ibe’, a statesman and proud son of the Ijaw nation, clearly indexed his place in the pantheon of history, not just among his people, but in the larger Nigerian society. It is to his credit and that of others of his era that Nigerians and Nigerian companies have planted their feet firmly and surefootedly in the oil and gas sector which in both pre and post-Independence Nigeria had been the grazing ground of multinationals who literally siphoned the wealth of the nation to their respective countries.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, once reeled out scary statistics that showed how the nation had been cheated by oil majors whose interest was chiefly to milk the nation and with the same speed they ferret crude oil from Nigeria’s subsoil, cart the petro-dollars to their parent countries.
Here are a few statistics: In the past, approximately 80 percent of Nigeria’s oil revenue was concentrated in the hands of one percent of the population; and 70 percent of Nigeria’s private wealth was held abroad. It was also recorded that out of every $100 made from oil and gas, only $5 was retained in Nigeria while $95 was stashed overseas. This is beyond capital flight. This is sheer robbery by the oil ‘super majors’ with of course connivance with a few unpatriotic Nigerians.
This had been the trend and this was exactly what Etete set out to reverse when as Minister of Petroleum under the late General Sani Abacha (1995-1998), he set the tone for the issuance of oil prospecting licences to indigenous companies.
To action the vision of local content development and advancement in the sector, the Abacha government with Etete as minister, on 29 April 1998, awarded a few oil blocks to indigenous companies. The reason was clear: to pave the path for local companies to participate in the exploration and production of crude oil. This will not only help to build local capacities, but also halt capital flight which had seen the nation earn so little while losing so much to foreigners.
That was how OPL 245 was awarded to a Nigerian company, Malabu Oil & Gas Limited with signature bonus of $20 million. The federal government also awarded other prospecting licences to other Nigerian companies with same concessionary signature bonus of around $20 million: OPL 246 went to South Atlantic Petroleum, OPL 247 to Heritage Oil, and OPL 248 to Zebra Energy. Nigeria’s then Defence Minister, General Theophilus Danjuma, had interests in South Atlantic Petroleum. But he would later sell it to Total and other investors.
Earlier in 1991, as part of the drive to encourage indigenous participation in the sector, the OPL 216 licence which had been awarded to BP and Statoil (now Equinor) was claimed back by the Federal government and awarded to Famfa Oil Ltd. These licences, including OPL 245, were awarded in accordance with the Indigenous Concession Programme (ICP), launched by the Nigerian government in 1991.
This audacious milestone in 1998, patriotic as it was, also triggered the beginning of a series of flipflops by successive Nigerian governments. Thus, what Etete intended to make Nigerians own the precious petroleum resources that Providence generously gave them became a tool for international conspiracy against Abacha, Etete and even some other Nigerians directly or remotely connected with the indigenous companies.
The first trigger was pulled in January 2001 by President Olusegun Obasanjo who revoked the licence for OPL 245. By that Presidential stroke of power, what could have been resolved amicably in the interest of the nation turned into a protracted legal battle spreading from Nigeria to France and Italy.
All told, OPL 245 is a battle spawn by ego of Nigerian leadership. From Abacha through Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan to Buhari and now Tinubu, the story of OPL 245 depicts the lack of continuity in Nigerian leadership; it mirrors self-interests, suspicion, treachery, and clear lack of transparency in the nation’s Presidency. While some presidents showed patriotism in their decisions concerning the oil block, others were simply driven by selfish interest. Etete is only a victim of the expansive Presidential mind-game fueled also by international interests.
It bears restating that the crucifixion of Etete has obvious national security implication. Among the persons directly and indirectly involved in the various oil blocks issued by the Federal Government at that time, he is the only one from the oil-bearing Niger Delta region. We are aware that crude oil from the Niger Delta has been the economic life-wire of Nigeria. These past years, Nigeria has managed to sustain peace in this all-important region through amnesty and other human development gestures. President Tinubu, a man versed in oil and gas business, should use his position to preserve this peace by ensuring that what belongs to the Niger Delta is not taken away from them.
After a careful study of the trove of documents including court papers alongside the documented history of graft in the nation’s oil and gas sector, it has become clear that OPL 245 was not about corruption. It’s beyond that. Corruption has been a key part of Nigeria’s existence since Independence across sectors. The cases of Siemens, Halliburton, Willbros, among other multinationals whose transactions in Nigeria were tainted with graft but had been swept under the carpet by successive Nigerian governments just to protect certain interests remind Nigerians that there was more to OPL 245 beyond Dan Etete whom as it now stands,  was only a victim of powers and authorities higher than himself.
Many questions beg for answers: What if Abacha had not died? Would OPL 245 have suffered this fate? Why did Obasanjo revoke the licence in 2001 thus setting the stage for international embarrassment and convoluted global litigations? Why was Malabu Oil and Gas suddenly denied ownership of the block despite clean bills from Nigerian institutions including the House of Representatives which after investigations concluded that Malabu was the rightful owner of the block.  Why was the out-of-court settlement approved in 2006 by Obasanjo in response to the memo suggesting same by Edmund Daukoru, minister of state for Petroleum not carried through? Even when President Jonathan returned the block to Malabu in 2010 after documented findings which showed that Malabu was not fairly treated, why was the matter not brought to a closure?
One thing stands sure: The manner successive Nigerian governments have handled the OPL 245 chronicle has put Nigeria in bad light. It has dimmed investors confidence and has underscored what the world thinks about Nigeria: A country of policy somersaults. President Tinubu has given hints that he wants to resolve the matter. In doing so, he must avoid the pitfall of self-interest which influenced some of the decisions of his predecessors.
The Tinubu government should as a matter of necessity verify the $1.3 billion paid by Shell and Eni. There has been a strong argument that suggests that the money paid was based on a projected 500 million barrels output from OPL 245 rather than the actual one billion barrels. With this deliberate opacity in actual volume yield of the oil block, Nigeria is already short-changed.
Nigeria cannot seek to build local content by taking away blocks already allotted to indigenous companies and handing such over to foreign concerns. That’s not patriotic.
This negates the idea of local content development. This matter can only be seen to have been resolved if the sacred principles of justice and fairness are upheld and the most pragmatic way to achieve this is to place the premium of ownership on Malabu Oil and Gas. Earlier court cases in Nigeria and institutional interventions including intervention from the House of Representatives favour this path. This is the path of honour not just for Nigeria’s image but for the sake of justice.
Gaya, public policy analyst, writes from Kano