NCDMB worthy story

By Ken Ugbechie

THE Nigerian Content Devel-
opment and Monitoring Board

(NCDMB) may not be as popular

as some agencies and parastat-
als like INEC, FIRS or even the

NNPC Limited, but it is the chief
driver of an ambitious reform in
the nation’s oil and gas sector.

And it’s doing it with quiet ef-
ficiency.

Credit must go to Dr Goodluck
Jonathan under whose Presidency
the NCDMB was established on
the props of the Nigerian Oil and

Gas Industry Content Develop-
ment (NOGICD) Act which came

into effect on April 22, 2010.
The purpose was to build up a
critical local content quotient in
processes, production, personnel
and contracting in the oil and gas
sector.

To properly situate the rele-
vance and essence of the cre-
ation of the Board, it’s apposite

to provide a background to the
undercurrents in the sector before
the Board’s establishment.
Prior to the birthing of the
Board in 2010, it was reported
that approximately 80 percent of
the oil revenue was concentrated
in the hands of 1 percent of the
population; and 70 percent of
Nigeria’s private wealth was held
abroad. The pioneer Executive
Secretary of the Board, Mr Ernest
Nwapa, was keynote speaker at
the All Nigeria Editors’ Con- ference (ANEC), the flagship
annual conference of the Nigerian
Guild of Editors which held in
Port Harcourt, Rivers State in
June 2010. Rotimi Amaechi was
governor of the state and he was
seated on the high table. So, was
Dr Dora Akunyili, then Minister
of Information. There were other
top government functionaries on
the high table as well as members of the Diplomatic corps. This
writer was compere of the event,
a role that brought more hurt on
my psyche because of the gloomy
statistics reeled out by Nwapa
and Professor Asisi Asobie, then
Chairman of Nigeria Extractive
Industries Transparency Initia- tive, NEITI, who was also a guest
speaker.
Nwapa in justifying the creation
of the Board before over 300
Nigerian editors and other guests

inside the hall, said that out of ev-
ery $100 made from oil and gas,

only $5 (5%) was retained in Ni-
geria while $95 was stashed away

overseas, usually by International
Oil Companies (IOCs). That was
beyond capital flight. That was
sheer robbery by the oil ‘super

majors’ with of course conniv-
ance with corrupt Nigerian public

office holders in that era. This
was possible because indigenous
oil companies were peripheral
players in the lucrative oil and gas
sector especially in the deep blue
exploration of oil. Nigeria was
a fertile grazing ground for oil
majors to the hurt of her citizens
and the local economy.
Retaining only $5 out of every
$100 was not only wicked on the
part of the IOCs, it was akin to
economic pogrom on a nation that

has been a long-standing mem-
ber of OPEC. This was possible

because past Nigerian govern-
ments and relevant indigenous

stakeholders in the sector went to
sleep while the oil majors dipped
their proboscis into the nation’s
oil-rich creeks and blue waters

and sucked the nation’s God-
given resources.

This background is necessary
just so we can appreciate the great
work being done and milestones
achieved by the extant Executive
Secretary of the Board, Mr Simbi Kesiye Wabote and his team.
Wabote, an engineer and former
staff of Shell, was first appointed

in September 2016 and reap-
pointed in 2020 on account of his

transformational leadership. In his
barely seven years as the gaffer
of the Board, Wabote has turned
the table, changed the negative
statistics, expanded and deepened
indigenous participation in the
sector and radically reversed the
toxic capital flight that attended
the sector in the past. Wabote is
the real McCoy; and he has turned
the Board to a veritable catalyst
for the promotion and propagation
of indigenous content in the oil
and gas value chain. The Board
under Wabote has maintained a
steadily growing momentum to
become an exemplum to other
sectors on how to develop local
capacities in the government’s
quest to plant a firm indigenous
foot in all sectors of the economy.
Here are some stats that show
how higher up the ladder the
Board has advanced the cause of
local content development in a

sector that was once the exclu-
sive playground of the oil super

majors.
In five years alone (2017
-2022), local content participation has notched up from 26 per cent
to 54 per cent. In monetary value,
it means that out of every $100
made in the sector, $54 is retained
in Nigeria as at Q4 of 2022.
Compare this to the $5 retained
at home out of every $100 as at
2010 and you will appreciate the
enormity of the sectorial transfor- mation by the Board. This jump
in local content was boosted by
the launch of the 10-year strategic
roadmap in 2018 by Wabote to
drive the attainment of 70 per cent
Nigerian content in the oil and gas
industry by 2027. It is expected
that by the end on this year, the
percentage would have inched
far above 54 percent and inching
closer to the 2027 target.
Earlier this month, precisely on
October 3, in Abuja, a confident

Wabote told a battery of on-
line publishers under the aegis

of Guild of Corporate Online
Publishers (GOCOP) at a capacity
building workshop how the Board
under his watch has enhanced
indigenous participation in the

sector. The once troubling sta-
tistics have metamorphosed into

encouraging figures underpinning
a nation’s resolve to take control
of her resources from prospecting
and production to processing and marketing.
How about this? A good 60 per- cent of domestic gas and 15 per- cent of crude oil are produced in
Nigeria by indigenous companies.
On account of the local content
drive of the Board, indigenous
companies such as Seplat, Aiteo,
among others have snapped up
some oil wells from the IOCs.
This has not only created jobs for
more Nigerians, it has also shot
up production for the indigenous
companies.
In recent years, IOCs have
embarked on divestments of their
equities from Nigeria. Wabote
told the online publishers that
such trend is global and has no
dire consequence on the sector.
Instead, he assured that such
divestment has paid off in the area
of boost in local production. He
cites the case of an indigenous
producer which has increased
the production it inherited from
20,000 bpd to 75,000 bpd (barrels
per day). In Nembe Creek, he
said, Aiteo has increased from
30,000 to 80,000 bpd. Ditto for
Oando and others. Divestment

by IOCs is a response to port-
folio rationalization, he told the

publishers.
What the Board has achieved
these past years is to ensure that a
significant chunk of money from
oil and gas sector stays in Nigeria,
in the hands of Nigerians and the

government for further develop-
ment of the sector and the country

at large. The oil and gas sector
has proven one thing: Nigerians
can take their destiny in their own
hands by consuming what they
produce and exporting the rest to
earn forex.
This is the sense in which many
rate Wabote and his team very
high on the performance index.
They deserve a pat, not a pelt.