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Why the book ‘From Oloibiri To Bonny’ Was written -Godswill Ihetu  

oil rigs

Today is a great day for me as I present this book. It took under two years to produce this partly because I took some extracts from some notes and jottings I had made over many years. The main reason it took under two years to write was thanks to the covid-19 induced lockdowns, no visitors, no parties, no meetings, no church attendance, and even no golfing.

Why did I write this book. My main motivation is to share knowledge.

I did so realising that I was privileged to have participated in the growth of the National Oil Company (NOC) and the oil and gas industry, participating with many others over several years and watched it grow. I occupied positions that gave me not only domestic perspectives but also in the global oil and gas business and politics.

I had a compulsion to share my own unique experience in appreciating that we all have our unique experiences. I realise that even though not having ever taught in any school, I have this compelling drive to share my knowledge.

This book captures a bit of the early history of the oil and gas industry. My first visit to Oloibiri was in 1959 the same year I joined Shell-BP as a trainee technician. Remember Nigeria first export of oil was from the Oloibiri oil field in 1958 after commercial discovery in 1956.

During my career in the industry I had lived in Bonny for six months, and in later years, led major projects in Bonny;7 construction of New Finima Town in Bonny LGA, and also participated in the relocation of the villagers from old Finima to the New Town to make way for the LNG plant and Residential Area.

I wrote this book to share my experience as one who played a pioneering role in the establishment of a highly succesful world class company that NLNG has become, and why it survived the jinx of a couple of failed LNG  initiatives.

Today both the LNG plant and Residential Area are a reality. NLNG  is today a world class  and hugely successful company.

This book articulates the little known impact of the industry in Nigeria’s economic  growth its multiplier effects, providing fuel for developing electric power, petrochemicals, fertiliser, aluminum, steel and several other industries.

In this book I share some stories that have never been in the public domain till now.

I was writing this book at a time when the death of oil was being predicted. Although I touched on the issue of climate change very briefly, its consequence for our country captured my imagination.

Climate change is real and is a subject of global concern. It has caught my imagination probably because burning of fossil fuels coal, oil and gas have been found to be responsible for the PHENOMENON. Because of this, the future of the oil and gas industry is uncertain.

Just last year, Alex Otti, our book Reviewer, wrote about the future of gas and renewable energy on his regular Monday back page column in Thisday newspaper. He asked whether renewables would threaten the future of gas. I was provoked by his article. I approached him and he was gracious enough to yield his page to my right of reply. Since then I have not taken my eyes off what is emerging. If the good Lord continues to bless me with good health, I intend to learn more about this global phenomenon and contribute in creating awareness about it, and how it could affect our petroleum industry.

Climate change is like a train that has left its station. Can the global community halt this train?  Meanwhile, I urge you to stay tuned because another book could be on the way on this subject matter.

In this book, I also shared my passion for developing  Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET).

I think the nation has lost this culture of giving sound techical training to our youths in our educational system. Everyone wants to go to university and every community is pushing for their technical college to be upgraded to a university. So  we produce many cowboys but not enough Indians, to borrow an American saying. We must change this mindset.

 

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