Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Yusuf Lasun, has stated that Nigeria is underdeveloped because there is lots of talk without action.
Addressing a 2-day stakeholders’ technical round table on “perennial petroleum products scarcity in Nigeria” in Abuja on Monday, Lasun expressed worry that the country is yet to tap fully into its agricultural sector while stalling in developing its oil resources.
He said: “Oil was found in Nigeria in 1956 and we started commercial exploitation in 1958 and yet we are still talking about fuel scarcity, PIB and the rest of them.
“If you go into history, people have been talking about oil industry in the last 58 years. That is why I always tell people, we talk too much in this country”.
Citing Malaysia as an example, Lasun informed his audience that the country produces 8,000 mbpd with a population 30 million but it does not rely on oil revenue.
“I went to Malaysia in March, Malaysia is a 30 million country with 800,000 mbpd. I want to compare those countries, 30 million. Nigeria with over 170 million people and with 2.2 mbpd that have been negatively affected in the last two months by Avengers, militants and we tell ourselves we are rich?
“But this is where the problem is, in Malaysia nobody will talk about oil like it’s the only source of income.
“The major source of income for that country is palm and they have 80 million hectares of plantation. I deliberate about this statistics, don’t forget I’m an engineer.
“In Nigeria the whole agriculture we are doing, particularly in that sector including those plantation in the wild is just 20 million hectares”.
Lasun observed that a major challenge faced by Nigeria in its oil industry, is that it does not possess the requisite technology to exploit it to the advantage of its citizens.
He said: “It was 29 years ago I discovered that we don’t have the technology of oil, the skill, the marketing and even the global politics itself.
“The problem in Nigeria is not because we have oil, but we have decided on our own by act of omission or commission not to know the nitty gritty of what it takes to exploit the natural resource in a manner that would benefit the public”.
In another breathe, the deputy speaker said criticisms of the legislature was mostly uninformed, saying “when it comes to legislative matters everyone in Nigeria has become a lecturer in democracy or tutor on how we should conduct ourselves on the floor of the two houses.
“It is always in vogue for people to say; how many laws have they written in a year, laws are not something you just sit and write, if you go through the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, 80 percent of the provision of that constitution have not been tested.
“If you go to the constitution of Nigeria, you will read what is called consolidated account and federation account, in another realm both consolidated account and federation account will be interchanged whereas they mean two different things”. –ORDERPAPER.NG
