Chairman of Access Holdings, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, has challenged political, business and community leaders in the Niger Delta to explain how an estimated $160 billion in federal allocations and intervention resources received by the region since 1999 failed to translate into commensurate productive assets and prosperity.
Aig-Imoukhuede threw the challenge while delivering the keynote address at the inaugural Niger Delta Economic and Investment Summit in Port Harcourt, Rivers State yesterday.
At the summit organised by the Niger Delta Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Trade, Mines and Agriculture (NDCCITMA) in partnership with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), World Trade Organisation(WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo, NDDC Managing Director, Samuel Ogbuku and other stakeholders called for the establishment of regional railways and an integrated power plant in the region.
Aig-Imoukhuede said: ‘What did 27 years of resources produce? And I want to start from 1999. Since 1999, by my estimates, the Niger Delta states and their local governments have received the historical equivalent of $140 billion in federal allocations, including the benefit of agriculture.
‘When the substantial resources separately channelled through the NDDC are taken into account, I think the accumulated resources have been about $160 billion over 27 years. There are no single consolidated public accounts. And forced precision would weaken rather than strengthen the argument.
‘So, it’s not about whether the figure is $160 billion, $200 billion, or $130 billion. But I would imagine that I’m not too far off. So the question is no longer how much came to the Niger Delta. The question is: what stock of productive capital did this $160 billion give?
‘What infrastructure do we have that raises productivity? What industrial capacity was created? What regional economic platforms emerged? What institutions have been established that can repeatedly originate, finance, and execute complex projects?
”What globally competitive enterprises grew out of this period? What assets would still be producing 25 years from now?’
He said the region’s fundamental problem was no longer its resource endowment or contribution to Nigeria’s economy, but its inability to convert its vast resources into productive capital, competitive businesses, jobs and improved living standards.
According to him, the Niger Delta must urgently move from a ‘rent-focused economy’ to a productive economy and develop a compact involving governments, the private sector, communities, development institutions and long-term investors.
He said: ‘The central economic question confronting the Niger Delta today is no longer whether the region is richly endowed. That question was settled decades ago.
‘The more difficult question I believe this summit seeks to answer is why have extraordinary resource endowments not produced a commensurate level of broad-based human prosperity?’
Aig-Imoukhuede said the region, despite its oil and gas wealth, coastlines, waterways, fertile land, ports, universities, entrepreneurs and youthful population, continues to grapple with widespread poverty.
He challenged the region’s political and economic elite to accept responsibility for the development failures rather than blame only the Federal Government.
‘Those of us, and I include myself and literally everybody here, who have benefited from education, political office, business success, professional achievement, traditional authority and social privilege, also have to examine our contribution to the development outcome,’ the Access Holdings boss added.
Aig-Imoukhuede said the Niger Delta has a ‘conversion problem,’ stressing that natural resources alone cannot create prosperity.
‘Natural resources create possibilities, but it is institutions that determine what happens to our possibilities and our dreams,’ he said.
In her virtual goodwill message, Okonjo-Iweala said the region’s development indicators remained troubling despite its enormous natural and human resources.
She said available data showed that only four Niger Delta states were among the top 10 on the National Human Development Index, which measures education, health and living standards
The WTO boss said about 24 million people, representing roughly 48 per cent of the region’s estimated 50 million population, are multidimensionally poor.
She added that about 60 per cent of households in the region lacked access to clean drinking water, compared with a national average of 51 per cent.
Seventy-two per cent, according to her, lack adequate sanitation facilities.
Okonjo-Iweala urged the private sector to lead efforts to reverse the trend by investing in the region and demonstrating that the Niger Delta was open for business.
‘The private sector, led by the Chambers, could partner with the governments of the region to establish viable special economic zones that form the backbone of a regenerated Niger Delta region,’ she said.
She identified critical minerals, agriculture and the coastal economy as three areas in which the region could diversify beyond oil.
On his part, the NDDC Managing Director, Dr Ogbuku, said the summit provided an opportunity for the region to rethink its economic future rather than continue its historical dependence on oil.
He said the revival of the Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce was designed to create a bridge between the Commission, government institutions, businesses and the people.
He disclosed that the NDDC had provided funds to support small and medium-scale enterprises through the Chamber, stressing that the initiative was structured to reach qualified beneficiaries rather than operate through political patronage.
He said the region must stop relying on outsiders to develop it and begin investing its own resources in the Niger Delta.
‘The main resource of the Niger Delta is the people. Good oil will come and go, but the human resources will remain,’ he said.
The NDDC boss proposed a common regional development roadmap involving the nine Niger Delta states, including integrated power and rail systems that would facilitate movement of goods, services and people across the region.
‘One state alone cannot do it. But in coming together, we can achieve this,’ he said.
NDCCITMA Chairman, Idaere Ogan, said the summit was designed to move the region beyond repeated discussions about its potential to actual investment and value creation.
He added that the objective was to move ‘from resources to productivity, from extraction to value, and from dependence to sustainable economic diversification.’