The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) may not be as popular as some agencies and parastatals like INEC, FIRS or even the NNPC Limited, but it is the chief driver of an ambitious reform in the nation’s oil and gas sector. And it’s doing it with quiet efficiency.

Credit must go to Dr Goodluck Jonathan under whose Presidency the NCDMB was established on the props of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act which came into effect on April 22, 2010. The purpose was to build up a critical local content quotient in processes, production, personnel and contracting in the oil and gas sector.

To properly situate the relevance and essence of the creation of the Board, it’s apposite to provide a background to the undercurrents in the sector before the Board’s establishment.

Prior to the birthing of the Board in 2010, it was reported that approximately 80 percent of the oil revenue was concentrated in the hands of 1 percent of the population; and 70 percent of Nigeria’s private wealth was held abroad. The pioneer Executive Secretary of the Board, Mr Ernest Nwapa, was keynote speaker at the All Nigeria Editors’ Conference (ANEC), the flagship annual conference of the Nigerian Guild of Editors which held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in June 2010. Rotimi Amaechi was governor of the state and he was seated on the high table. So, was Dr Dora Akunyili, then Minister of Information. There were other top government functionaries on the high table as well as members of the Diplomatic corps. This writer was compere of the event, a role that brought more hurt on my psyche because of the gloomy statistics reeled out by Nwapa and Professor Asisi Asobie, then Chairman of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, who was also a guest speaker.

Nwapa in justifying the creation of the Board before over 300 Nigerian editors and other guests inside the hall, said that out of every $100 made from oil and gas, only $5 (5%) was retained in Nigeria while $95 was stashed away overseas, usually by International Oil Companies (IOCs). That was beyond capital flight. That was sheer robbery by the oil ‘super majors’ with of course connivance with corrupt Nigerian public office holders in that era. This was possible because indigenous oil companies were peripheral players in the lucrative oil and gas sector especially in the deep blue exploration of oil. Nigeria was a fertile grazing ground for oil majors to the hurt of her citizens and the local economy.

Retaining only $5 out of every $100 was not only wicked on the part of the IOCs, it was akin to economic pogrom on a nation that has been a long-standing member of OPEC. This was possible because past Nigerian governments and relevant indigenous stakeholders in the sector went to sleep while the oil majors dipped their proboscis into the nation’s oil-rich creeks and blue waters and sucked the nation’s God-given resources.

This background is necessary just so we can appreciate the great work being done and milestones achieved by the extant Executive Secretary of the Board, Mr Simbi Kesiye Wabote and his team. Wabote, an engineer and former staff of Shell, was first appointed in September 2016 and reappointed in 2020 on account of his transformational leadership. In his barely seven years as the gaffer of the Board, Wabote has turned the table, changed the negative statistics, expanded and deepened indigenous participation in the sector and radically reversed the toxic capital flight that attended the sector in the past. Wabote is the real McCoy; and he has turned the Board to a veritable catalyst for the promotion and propagation of indigenous content in the oil and gas value chain. The Board under Wabote has maintained a steadily growing momentum to become an exemplum to other sectors on how to develop local capacities in the government’s quest to plant a firm indigenous foot in all sectors of the economy. Here are some stats that show how higher up the ladder the Board has advanced the cause of local content development in a sector that was once the exclusive playground of the oil super majors.

In five years alone (2017 -2022), local content participation has notched up from 26 per cent to 54 per cent. In monetary value, it means that out of every $100 made in the sector, $54 is retained in Nigeria as at Q4 of 2022. Compare this to the $5 retained at home out of every $100 as at 2010 and you will appreciate the enormity of the sectorial transformation by the Board. This jump in local content was boosted by the launch of the 10-year strategic roadmap in 2018 by Wabote to drive the attainment of 70 per cent Nigerian content in the oil and gas industry by 2027. It is expected that by the end on this year, the percentage would have inched far above 54 percent and inching closer to the 2027 target.

Earlier this month, precisely on October 3, in Abuja, a confident Wabote told a battery of online publishers under the aegis of Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) at a capacity building workshop how the Board under his watch has enhanced indigenous participation in the sector. The once troubling statistics have metamorphosed into encouraging figures underpinning a nation’s resolve to take control of her resources from prospecting and production to processing and marketing.

How about this? A good 60 percent of domestic gas and 15 percent of crude oil are produced in Nigeria by indigenous companies. On account of the local content drive of the Board, indigenous companies such as Seplat, Aiteo, among others have snapped up some oil wells from the IOCs. This has not only created jobs for more Nigerians, it has also shot up production for the indigenous companies.

In recent years, IOCs have embarked on divestments of their equities from Nigeria. Wabote told the online publishers that such trend is global and has no dire consequence on the sector. Instead, he assured that such divestment has paid off in the area of boost in local production. He cites the case of an indigenous producer which has increased the production it inherited from 20,000 bpd to 75,000 bpd (barrels per day). In Nembe Creek, he said, Aiteo has increased from 30,000 to 80,000 bpd. Ditto for Oando and others. Divestment by IOCs is a response to portfolio rationalization, he told the publishers.

What the Board has achieved these past years is to ensure that a significant chunk of money from oil and gas sector stays in Nigeria, in the hands of Nigerians and the government for further development of the sector and the country at large. The oil and gas sector has proven one thing: Nigerians can take their destiny in their own hands by consuming what they produce and exporting the rest to earn forex.

This is the sense in which many rate Wabote and his team very high on the performance index. They deserve a pat, not a pelt.

First published in Sunday Sun