Tackles Police Minister over N3.5bn fund
From Onwuka Nzeshi in Abuja, 11.15.2009


The House of Representatives yesterday urged the Federal Government to direct the relevant authorities to resume the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas in the Lake Chad Basin, Benue and Adamawa Troughs as well as the Anambra River Basin.
The decision came on the same day the House mandated its Committee on Aviation to investigate a near air mishap which occurred within the Port Harcourt Airspace. Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Godswill Akpabio, was said to have been on board one of the planes involved in the close shave collision.
This came as the House Committee on Police Affairs, yesterday, questioned the Minister for Police Affairs, Mr Ibrahim Lame, over the implementation of the N3.5billion Strategic Crime Prevention programme in seven cities of the country, saying its implementation fell short of expectations.
The fund approved for the Police Force under the 2009 Appropriation Act was meant to beef up security in the cities of Lagos, Kano, Maiduguri, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Ibadan.
The House also passed through second reading, the supplementary appropriation bill in which President Umar Yar Adua is seeking parliament’s authority to appropriate the sum of N352.8billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
The resolve to compel the Federal Government to resume the search for oil in the deserts of Northern Nigeria followed a motion brought to the floor of the House by the Minority Leader of the House, Honourable Mohammed Ali Ndume and 62 other legislators. Ndume had in his lead debate expressed concern that the Federal Government had in the past ten years suspended oil exploration and exploitation activities in the Northern part of the country. He argued that given the importance of oil and gas to the economic and social well being of Nigerians, it will be wrong to continue to ignore this major source of revenue especially at this era of global economic downturn.

Oil exploration and exploitation activities in the country have largely been limited to the coastal Niger Delta region and some parts of the old Eastern region, namely Imo and Abia states.
Earlier efforts in the Chad Basin and adjoining territories were said to have been frustrated by a number of factors including the huge cost of the venture and apparent non-viability of some of the oil wells discovered in the region.
However, Ndume said there can be no more excuses as neighbouring countries such as the Republic of Chad and Niger Republic which are on the same ecological belt have since completed their own exploration process and have now started the process of exploitation of the vast petroleum resources in their region.

In the course of the debate and amendments, Honourable CID Maduabum also reminded the House that Anambra State has suffered a similar fate and has remained excluded from the powerful league of oil producing states in the country despite its huge oil and gas deposits. Maduabum who represents Nnewi/Ekwusigo Federal Constituency of Anambra State urged the House to include the Anambra Basin in the list of areas where oil and gas exploitation should resume and this amendment as well as the motion was unanimously adopted.
Hon. Ekperipke Ekpo who brought the motion on the near air mishap disclosed that the nation was spared a fatal plane crash recently when a Hawker 900 passenger aircraft belonging to Garventon almost collided mid-air with an Allied Aircraft within the Port Harcourt Airspace on October 30, 2009. According to Ekpo, the Hawker 900 which originated its flight from Calabar was heading to Lagos en route Port Harcourt almost collided with the Allied Aircraft which was descending to land.
He alleged that the Port Harcourt Control Tower cleared the Allied Aircraft to descend from a higher altitude across the approved operational level of the Hawker 900 to a lower level on the opposite direction. Preliminary investigation indicates the Hawker 900 either had no Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) equipment or it was not functional.
The House resolved not only to investigate the matter but to urge the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other relevant authorities to ensure that all passenger aircraft have functional Traffic Collision Avoidance System before flying the Nigerian Airspace and to ground defaulting planes.


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Na today we don dey search for oil for North?

They should search and find oil in the North. Leave SE alone.

make dem find oil quick,so that we go fit use am for corruption.afterall the pipe where it will be used to pump it oversea will still pass Niger Dalt.

I want to say something here. I know that, if it was possible for the north to come to the south and vice-versa, the north would have left Nigeria since the days of our grand-parents. The way they are going about this exploration thing, shows how eager they are. Whichever way it is, seeking more oil wells is not the solution plaguing the nation. Bad leadership is the summary of the problem of this country. By the way, what happens to the old ancient groundnut pyramid, that we use to see when we were small? What happened to the ever covetous cocoa that Nigeria was noted for in the early 60's and 70's? Why want to turn the economy into a mono-product economy?. Are there other areas that are left untapped in this country? If someone decide to explore them, wont government nationalise them? These are issues that bad leadership can not analyse and find progressive solutions to.

One thing I discovered in this country is that, we like to copy things instead of creating new avenues for development. The day a car will be built in Onitsha or Aba, other part of the country will start looking for how to build their own and possibly name them after their states, not minding what they call, comparative advantage, in the economy.

We should learn how to develop things in every sector of the economy, instead of trying to be what we cannot!.