Disclaimer!! This thread is for information purpose and should not be use for any d1ck measuring contest...


....chest beating and tribalistic comment should be avoided.
Thanks
Cc; lalasticlala

OIL LESSON 101..Colonial Documents. •Colonial documents and evidences prove that oil was first found in Ebonyi, Anambra, Enugu states, 88 years ago, but government refuses to acknowledge this nor explore the black gold.
Not many Nigerians may know that 88 years ago, oil was discovered in Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states, in the South East geo-political zone. That was at least more than 20 years before the oil find in Oloibori, in the Niger Delta, which is prided as the first discovery in the country. According to documentary evidence, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) knows this, but the corporation has not made much efforts to explore the oil ever since.
Saturday Sun visited Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states recently, where mineral oil lie idle and waste. Indigenes of these places, where unexploited oil was discovered, are full of lamentation.
Evidence of oil find in South East
At Edda, Ebonyi State, Prince Sunny Ugwuocha, a calibration engineer and principal partner of an oil servicing firm in Lagos, confirmed knowledge of the existence of oil in his community. It was also the same with Mr. Nnachi Kalu, a chemist and petroleum analyst, who admitted to Saturday Sun his knowledge of oil in Edda, his native place.
They said the oil find was in 1928, 88 years ago. Till date, the oil in Edda, with all the attesting documents at the National Archives in Enugu remains untapped.
To natives of the Anam clan in Anambra State, the riverine communities, it’s not news that there is crude oil in their domain. They know that as clear as they see the sky. Almost everybody there, up to the age of 40 can stand at any point you accost him to count out on his fingers the oil fields of Anam. The FG and NNPC know these fields, as the natives. In fact, the Anam oil find became a serious issue in about 2004 when rumours were rife that the Orient Petrochemical Company was to build a petrochemical plant in Otuocha to tap the resource. That was in the wake of the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s liberalisation of oil refining in the country. Sometime after, nothing was heard, even though it had become public knowledge that the natural gas deposit in Anam could compare favourably with that in the Niger Delta.
Saturday Sun took the search for the information on oil in the South East of Nigeria to Enugu State. The destination was Awgu. And the story was the same: the people know there is such find. Indeed, there was mention of some other places in Enugu, like Isi Uzo, Uzo Uwani and Eha Ndiagu as having also earth crusts embedded with the black gold. So, with these facts, the people again asked: what did we do that the government would hold us down with laws stopping us from tapping the resources and refusing to tap them? NOTE: Complete Report Follows Below

Saturday Sun’s search at the Archives in Enugu concerning the Edda oil finds, after a visit to Edda to see the oil find spots, was revealing and rewarding. The file is intact and filled with indisputable facts of the oil discovery. And by the documents there, so far, there is no oil find in Nigeria older than that of Edda. It puts the lie mark on the record that first oil find in Nigeria was in Oloibiri, in present Bayelsa State. Oloibiri was in the mid 50s while that of Edda is almost 30 years older.

The file: No. OG/2003, Subject: Discovery of Oil in Afikpo Division by Mr. L.H. Shelton, then D.O (Divisional Officer of the British colonial government) was deposited at the Archives on January 15, 1956. This period of filing coincides with the second oil find in Edda by Shell BPC at another location. While the first find was in Nguzu, the second was at Ezi Edda. At this place, Saturday Sun saw the landmark still intact. In between the Orienta Primary School, Ezi-Edda and Etiti Secondary School and a health centre is this oil well marked with a platform, just about a pole off the major road that leads to Ndiba Edda. With age and the school children that shake and tamper with the platform, where they crack palm nuts from palm trees standing nearby, sides of the concrete slab are gone. And a native that took Saturday Sun there, Mr. Arua Paul, explained that in his days, as a school boy in the primary school in the 70s, there used to be a red plastic cap on the metal vertical projection on the slab that had inscription of date of dig of the well and the company.

As regards the 1928 find in Nguzu, the 45-page archival document is as revealing as it is detailed and authentic. The file shows that the team of geologists that carried out the research sank 20 test pits at various spots, which revealed the existence of crude oil of Redwood class that was reported sulphur-free in all of them. The first discovery of the oil was made on February 22, 1928, just as a tentative report was sent to the director of geological survey on February 25, the same year.

A thorough examination of the ground was conducted on March 9-11, 1928, while a “detailed report was submitted for the information of His Honour on March 28, 1928.”

Report Continues 3:- On April 25, 1928, a memorandum was received from the director of geological survey, saying that the “fluid was certainly crude oil of medium to high specific gravity, and its discovery by you is of the greatest importance.”
From the recovered documents, a sample of the oil was forwarded to the British government in London on July 5, 1928. In an earlier correspondence, the director of geological survey, Mr. P. O. Kinna, on May 9, 1928 wrote to the chief secretary to the government, Lagos on the topic: “Oil at Ngusu (Nguzu),” stating: “I have the honour to forward a report by Mr. Bain on the oil seepage at Ngusu (Nguzu), which he examined in January and February this year.

“This seepage of oil is very similar to that previously described from near Awgu and those occurrences warrant the hope that oil may yet be found in the beds in greater quantities. The oil appears in the bed of a small stream about half a mile from the west of the Ngusu rest house, which lies some 14 miles south-west of Afikpo.
“It oozes out from the sides of a pit dug in the stream-bed and is accompanied by the evolution of gas, which bubbles up through the water accompanying the oil. Under favourable conditions, the oil burns freely as jet and is probably a mixture of methane and ethane, two gases associated with mineral oil. A fairly steady flow of oil was maintained amounting to about two gallons per day.”

In his expert opinion, Bain suggested that should a detailed geologic survey show that the oil is gravitating down the hillside from pebbly sandstone, it is unlikely to yield economic supplies unless seepages are found east of the watershed. However, should further work show that the oil is being forced up through the shales under gas pressure, there is the possibility of economic supplies being concealed in a deep seated natural reservoir.
To clear this speculation, he advised that such problem can only be solved by a “detailed geological investigation directed, especially, to determining the underground rock structures.”

Report Continues 4:- In his conclusion, he said: “It appears that the sample is crude mineral oil. The absence of light oils, boiling below 150 Celsius, is not unusual phenomenon with such oils, as those found in Persia (Iran), Borneo, Colombia, etc, sometimes have this fracture.” Unfortunately, 83 years after, that suggestion of further detailed geological investigation is what the government of Nigeria has refused to do.

Another laboratory result on the same sample from the Imperial Institute, London, gave the following: “The sample, which is the subject matter of this report was sent to the Imperial Institute by the director of geological survey of Nigeria and referred to in his letter 523/51 of 26th October, 1928. Results of examination of the sample, which measured about 650c.c, was contained in two bottles, consisted of reddish-brown thick oil. Free from objectionable odour, containing a little water together with some earthy sediments. The mixed samples gave the following results on examination: Specific gravity of 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius) -0.928. Viscosity - (Redwood), time of flow of 50cc at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celcius)…900 seconds.”

Flash Point: (Pensky Martens closed test)113 degrees Celsius. Calorific Value: 10615 calories or 19107 British Thermal Units. Sulphur, S: …0.18 per cent. Distillation by the Engler method gave the following: Only a trace of paraffin wax was present in the sample. The above results show that the sample bears considerable resemblance to the one from Nigeria previously examined here (see imperial Institute report M. 3417 dated July 1928)
It said: “It will be seen that the quantity of low boiling volatile hydrocarbon is very small, hence the flash point is high. Oil of this quality represented by the present sample if freed from sediment and water, could be used as fuel oil as it has satisfactory calorific value and its sulphur content is low.”

The report here shows there were two tests and results from oil obtained from Edda. Both gave results that the sample was of good and high grade crude oil.

At the time of forwarding the sample, the Afikpo Divisional District Officer, Mr. Shelton, stated in his letter to the Resident, Ogoja Province: “The finding of further seepages is most important, but the people are not keen on rendering assistance to the discovery, being, as usual, suspicious as to government’s intentions with regard to their land.”

Continues 5:- To ensure the oil was tapped, Shelton solicited financial assistance from Ogoja in order to use it to motivate the people, as he had put it: “in order to secure the aid of some of the local inhabitants.”
After the samples were sent to London, the Imperial Institute, South Kensington London, SW7 on December 20, 1928 wrote, in reply to the geologists in Nigeria, in respect of the Edda oil samples in Reference No. M.3566 in the following words: “It will be noted that oil of similar quality to that represented by the sample, if free from sediments and water, could be used as a fuel oil.” This was signed by L.M Henderson Scott, Principal, Mineral Resources Department.

Prince Ugwuocha, a member of the Nigerian petroleum engineers recalled to Saturday Sun: “As a native of Edda, it is not news that there is oil in our land. We are also aware of the documents to that effect. What is rather strange is the continual refusal of the FG to tap the oil. We know the find was made long ago by the colonial masters, but I think laws made by the government have been applied with a touch of discrimination against our people. I remember that when President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power he was told of this oil in Edda by the then governor, Dr. Sam Egwu. He showed no enthusiasm on that news and casually said the governor should be sure of his claims. If the same government could be spending fortunes in search of oil it is not sure to find, why won’t it explore the one that is already known and certain. I was at Abakaliki on that day of visit on December 9, 2000, and had high hopes that the information to the president would bring something different. But I was wrong.”

Report Continues 6:- Mr. Kalu, a chemist and petroleum analyst, also confirmed the presence of oil in his native Edda. He said: “I can’t remember seeing any landmark on the find in Nguzu, but I have read the document. I would explain that Edda belongs to two extreme geographical features – the hilly regions and the flatlands. The Nguzu oil finds are in the hilly region, while the find at Ezi Edda is in the flatland and the landmark Shell made at the oil well it dug in the 50s from what was marked on the concrete slab is about 500 metres away from a major river that traverses almost all parts of Edda. In fact, during high ebb, the region could be a flood plain. So, there is, no doubt, that the find here must stretch to other parts of Edda at the flatlands area. The documented and scientific evidences are overwhelming and what remains is the exploration by the government. I don’t want to believe that the FG is against tapping the resources in our area in favour of others, but there are signs to that effect.”

“The National Assembly has the duty of bringing the NNPC, through a motion to commence works to tap the oil in Edda and other parts of Igboland. If the Senate can pass a resolution to order NNPC to go on with a jamboree search in the North, it will be doing the nation greater service to direct them to Edda to tap this abundant, but abandoned wealth. But if they refuse, maybe, on reasons of keeping it as reserve, then it should list Edda among oil producing communities and pay our people the royalty to develop our place and improve the economy of the people.”

Report Continues 7:- Oil in Anam, Anambra
At the Anam region, Saturday Sun spoke with the natives, who gave copious facts and evidences of the oil find. Anam is some 5km from Otuocha, across the Omambala River, from which Anambra State derives its name. To access Anam is just a tee off the Onitsha-Enugu expressway branching off at the Awkuzu junction. After about 25km off this highway, you are in Anam. It is a low lying plain, a long stretch of swampy marshland that imbues the populace into farming and fishing as major livelihood. There is a road under construction even as you read this piece that goes off from Aguleri towards Anam and across the river, which the natives say is being handled by the Federal Government. It is supposed to be a link road to Abuja. Work was on and by Nigercat Construction Company when Saturday Sun visited. In fact, the people know the road better as ezi ndi shell (Shell road) Shell British Petroleum Company (SBPC) as it was known then constructed the road as their access route to the oil fields of Anam in 1970, the people say.

The men in their 40s, who Saturday Sun spoke with, say as kids they saw Shell trucks traverse the road and their choppers hover over their heads, as they moved about at the oil fields. They were not there for jamboree or wild goose chase, but extracted oil, for which they paid some of the villages some royalty, and in some instances still pay.
Prince Albert Okeke (Omega) took Saturday Sun to Oroma Etiti, one of the six villages of Anam, where he identified the Ajire 1 oil well. The trigonometric Beacon, with which Shell marked the oil drilling point, still stands since April 1972, as clearly marked on the concrete triangular datum point. The engraved mark reads: SBPC, AJIRE 1, April, 1972. There is a wide concrete platform all around it, marking out the extent of the work done. The concrete platform of about the size of basketball pitch serves the villagers as space for drying their rice grains today as seen on the day of visit.

Wow! Naija is blessed

Report Continues 8:- Prince Okeke said: ‘There is nothing doubtful about the presence of oil in Anam. I am from this town, and from my childhood, I saw Shell come here to tap oil. In fact, I bear witness that up till now I speak they still pay my village some stipend in form of royalty annually. Because the money is not much, my people asked them to keep it and pay every 10 years, so as to make something fairly substantial. In the past, we saw them; later we couldn’t and nobody has told us why they ceased. Did the oil run dry? Definitely, no. Some years ago, our hopes were raised, as we heard that Orient Oil would build a refinery around here and oil exploration will take full effect. After sometime, that fizzled out and we have not seen any serious action. Yet, once in a while they come around and hover over the fields. We are still waiting and our question is whether the Federal Government that has the powers to tap oil has deliberately decided to hold us down by refusing to explore oil in Anam.”
To some extent, Hon. Simon Onuorah is an activist for the Anam oil. He and Okeke heard of Saturday Sun’s visit and came from their domain in Asaba, Delta State, to give some vital points. Onuorah said he has written so many published materials on the abandoned Anam oil fields.

According to him, “most of my articles were published in so many national dailies. I so raised the awareness, to the extent that it attracted the attention of then governor of the state, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, who later pushed the FG to renew interest. After him, former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju continued with the agitation. Our arguments were also taken up by the late Senator Chuba Okadigbo when he was the Senate President. And he actually represented our area. This is a battle I have fought over time and I am willing to give you all the documents you require. I see the neglect of the oil in Anam as counter productive. I also know that there is crude oil in Edda, Ebonyi State and some parts of Enugu State. With this spread all over the Igbo nation, I have strong reasons to believe that the FG deliberately refused to explore the oil to hold the Igbo down. Otherwise, what is the reason the same FG spends billions of naira through the NNPC every year to search for oil that does not exist in the Lake Chad and Benue Trough? These are the inequalities the Igboman complain of in the set-up of the nation and many misunderstand us. This attitude is discriminatory and unlawful. If the oil here is tapped our people will get infrastructural and economic empowerment through royalties and employment for the people.”

Report Continues 9:- Comrade Emmanuel Agbata, president general of the Nmiata, Anam Development Union, was unsparing in his comment and angst about the refusal to explore the oil in their domain. To him, the act is intended to cut down the economic power of the Igbo and limit her growth and strength in Nigeria. He fumed: “These are the facts that make us still say that the civil war is not yet over. The neglect of the oil in Igboland in preference for one that doesn’t exist in the North is a way of continuing to punish us for the war. The reason the people of the Niger Delta are bold is oil. The reason the Arab world can’t be shaken by the world is oil. Oil lubricates the wheels of today’s economy. Whoever has it, has a say, and because they don’t want us empowered, they hold our resources down with discriminatory laws.

“I have heard that the oil in this region is on strategic reserve. But I want to ask, why won’t the FG pay us oil derivation revenue? We never asked them not to tap the oil. They are the ones that refused to explore it. Yes, we know nations have strategic mineral reserve, but when that is the situation, you pay the people. So, we want to be listed among the oil communities of Nigeria, pending when the FG decides to tap the oil. We want to be paid the revenue accruable to oil producing states and communities. I have to explain that we have been holding our youths back from protest to the FG over this discrimination. It is either they grant us what belongs to us or allow us tap the oil. But we can’t stop the youths forever, even as we don’t want what is happening in the Niger Delta to happen here. There is oil already drilled at Nzam, Akpu Nnunnu, and Iwo and Awoko owned by our neighbouring community.”

Comrade Agbata attested that some years ago, they used to see oil exploring companies come with their helicopters to the oil fields. “Most times they came by road and went to the spots they had dug wells and do some work. There are even roads around here they constructed as access routes to the oil fields and wells. But for about 10 years now, they are rarely seen,” he said.
In addition to the Anam region, they are sure there is oil in Aguleri Otu and Igbariam, in the Anambra East LGA. These places are neighbours to Anam, in the Anambra West Council.

Awgu oil find
The Edda oil find documents made unambiguous reference to another find in Awgu Division, in present Enugu State. It took a whole day of leafing through rumpled brownish ancient pages of documents at the Enugu Archives, in an effort to lay hands on further evidences of the Awgu oil find. At last, the repository that is at the brink could not be of help. After hours of sorting through files, a file in the index was spotted on “Oil finds in the Southern Region of Nigeria,” in a volume of the index marked ‘Udi Division.’ But the hope was dashed once again after the archivists worked their shelves for hours to report back that the file, though spotted on the index list, could not be found on the shelves. It was a big blow.

But natives Saturday Sun spoke with in Enugu, admitted they know that there is oil mineral in Awgu found in the colonial days and yet to be tapped by the FG. Some others added that Uzo Uwani, Isi Uzo and some parts of Enugu, that border the Anam lowland district of Anambra, also have evidences of oil as explorers in the past had drilled oil in the areas and left marks to indicate where they spotted oil.
A concrete claim to this story came from no less a person than the monarch of Eha-Ndiagu in the Nsukka region, Igwe Dr. Eze Donatus, who confirmed to Saturday Sun that he has records of first oil prospecting and find in his community in 1965. The monarch said he used to see these people come in helicopters and land in their bushes and farms to search for oil.

“They found oil, especially gas and made the landmarks and left. Sometime three years ago, Gas and Petroleum Technical Company (GPTL) came back with fresh promises that they have found gas in commercial quantity. I talk to you as the leader of this town that their words were sure, especially after their last visit this year that they found gas in commercial quantity. They were specific that their find is 65 per cent of natural gas and 35 per cent of other allied minerals, including crude oil. They left with a promise of coming back soon to commence prospecting and we are still waiting. I know that there is oil and gas in Udi and Ezeagu, all in these same Enugu State,” he said.

Continues 10:- Bogged down with laws
As a result of certain laws that vest the monopolistic power to explore oil on the FG and the NNPC, all parts of the nation, especially these South East states, are today victims of these organs of government. Section 5 (1) of the NNPC Act, Cap. 320, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 provides: “Subject to the provisions of this Act, the corporation shall be charged with the duty of “(a) exploring and prospecting for, working, winning or otherwise acquiring, possessing and disposing of petroleum.”

An introduction to the Petroleum Act, Cap. 350, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 was couched in the following words: “An Act to provide for the exploration of petroleum from the territorial waters and continental shelf of Nigeria and to vest the ownership of and all on-shore and off-shore revenue from petroleum resources derivable therefrom in the Federal Government and for all other matter incidental thereto.”
Further, Section 1 stated: “(1) the entire ownership and control of all petroleum in, under or upon any lands to which be vested in the State; (2) This section applies to all land (including land covered by water), which (a) is in Nigeria: or (b) is under the territorial waters of Nigeria: or (c) forms part of the continental shelf.”
Pursuant to Section 2 of the Act, subsection (1) says the minister may grant (a) a licence, to be known as an oil exploration licence, to explore for petroleum; (b) a licence, to be known as an oil prospecting licence, to prospect for petroleum; and (c) a lease, to be known as an oil mining lease, to search for, win, work, carry away and dispose of petroleum.”

These laws have over time served as tools with which the FG can either explore or refuse to explore any oil deposit. It could also take this power to the extreme by doing what it has done in the Chad Basin in the past 30 years - wasting time and resources in vain adventure in imaginary places all in the search of oil.
Since the power vested in the government is used at its dictate, it has been channeling its efforts to an adventurous search in the northern part of the country. Although this has not been successful, yet the FG keeps renewing its promise not to relent in the search at the Benue and Chad Basins.

Wonderful!

Is this an epistle to the Corinthians?

Naija is blessed with so many natural resources but some people have vowed that those resources must be their family inheritance .....We are still watching

Great Nation!

Presence marked

To long.

Interesting revelation!

And the history books have always taught us that oil was first discovered in oloibiri in bayelsa in 1957...waiting to hear what our ofeimanu neighbours have to say

Benedict44:
Naija is blessed with so many natural resources but some people have vowed that those resources must be their family inheritance .....We are still watching

it is Biafra not nigeria

MyPWisINCORRECT:
Is this an epistle to the Corinthians?

No! it is an article of great Revelation.

It is common knowledge that all 5 Igbo States have oil in commercial quantity. That's why I laugh when some people say that Igbos are after SS Oil.

zendy:
It is common knowledge that all 5 Igbo States have oil in commercial quantity. That's why I laugh when some people say that Igbos are after SS Oil.

then what are you after?

Why tag them along all the time?

Oil thieves and land grabbers.

zendy:
It is common knowledge that all 5 Igbo States have oil in commercial quantity. That's why I laugh when some people say that Igbos are after SS Oil.

Don't mind the toddlers or semi illetrates parading as gurus in nairaland. The east is not call the oil rivers for nothing

1, 2, 3..... FIGHT

[b]since Biafra now has oil...they should leave SS outta their mess....God bless de Niger Delta

flat heads again

Damn! This is too long. Please who has the movie?

A lot of retrogressive laws was made by the men in khaki. These are the laws the legislators should seek to amend. Imagine the amount of jobs this will create If the oil is exploited. Igboland is truly blessed.

*double post*

Oil was first discovered in Nigeria in Araromi, Ilaje, Ondo State by a German company, the Nigerian Bitumen Corporation in 1908. Due to the breakout of the First World War in 1914, the company left.

MyPWisINCORRECT:
Is this an epistle to the Corinthians?

^^^Did anyone hold a gun to your head and force you to read it?