The Oloibiri Oil and Gas Discovery Day Initiative has urged the Federal Government to declare a national public holiday to commemorate the discovery of oil in the sleepy riverine community of Oloibiri.

The president of the Initiative, Evangelist Naranie Albert Karibo, who made the appeal in an interactive world press briefing with in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, on Monday, said that they want the government to recognise the Oloibiri Oil Field for launching Nigeria into a petro-dollar state.

He said: “Oloibiri Oil Field was discovered on Sunday January 15, 1956 by Shell D’arcy. It is Nigeria’s first commercial oil discovery and it ended the 50 years of unsuccessful oil exploration in the country. The field produced an average rate of 5,100 barrels of oil per day for the first year.

“The production increased as more wells were put onto production and reached its peak in 1964. The gas produced with the oil was flared off as a result of lack of gas processing and utilisation facility in the country then.”

Evangelist Karibo said oil is the main stay of the Nigerian economy, stressing that about 85 per cent of national and state budgets solely depend on the federal allocation from crude oil proceedings, but regretted that the area and its people are being abandoned and neglected.

As a Minister of God, Evangelist Karibo noted that God who gave the crude oil “is bitterly angry with the Nigerian state and her leadership for the total neglect and non-development of the people, particularly the oil bearing host communities like Oloibiri Oil field.”

He said that despite the fact that oil was discovered and exploited in commercial quantity in Ogbia LGA, Bayelsa State, poverty remains endemic in the area, as there is no single industrial structure around the location of the oil well to confirm previous form of industrial activity there.

Evangelist Karibo who called on the government and private corporations to meaningfully invest and contribute to the long term development of Oloibiri and its local economy, also wants corporate entities to sponsor the annual thanks-giving/prayer services for God to resuscitate the area.

He said since politicians have failed the people, we have to put hope in God to salvage the land, stressing that three Ministers and a President have come out of Bayelsa State, yet, nothing came out of it, but noted that with the intervention of God Almighty, the big project will come to fruition.

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