The Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, told the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) that the state needs direct access to the country’s vast gas reserves to drive industrialisation and power generation.

According to the governor, the state cannot do this despite being an oil and gas-producing state because it is not part of the country’s gas master plan.

Soludo spoke through his Commissioner for Information and Value Reformation, Dr. Law Mefor, while delivering his goodwill message at the Nigerian Content Capacity Building Workshop for Media Stakeholders in Awka, Anambra State, organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

He commended NCDMB for hosting the workshop in Anambra, noting that the state should feel its impact more, and promised to escalate the issues raised to Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo.

He lamented that Anambra, which sits on one of the biggest gas reserves in Nigeria and Africa, has not benefited from its status as an oil-producing state and has yet to feel the impact of Nigeria’s Gas Master Plan, describing as unacceptable a situation where the state expected to drive development cannot access its own gas.

He noted that with President Bola Tinubu’s signing of the law moving electricity generation, transmission and distribution from the exclusive to the concurrent legislative list, Anambra now has the legal and governance framework, including a constituted Electricity Board, to generate its own power, but needs gas as a critical enabler to light up the state, power its industries and sell excess to other states.

Before then, the General Manager, Corporate Communication of NCDMB, Dr Obinna Ezeobi, who’s an Anambra native, had challenged the state government to show interest, like some other states, in partnering with the Board, adding that the state had never written a single letter for such.

He expressed the board’s desire to establish a stronger platform in the Southeast and collaborate beyond the workshop to improve the quality of media reportage on local content.

Ezeobi also charged the media with holding oil and gas operators accountable for complying with Nigerian content requirements.

Ezeobi said Anambra was an important location for the workshop because it was recognised as an oil-producing state and ranked third among oil-producing states in the Southeast, with an estimated production capacity of 3,000 barrels per day.

He said Anambra is home to prominent indigenous oil and gas companies, including OilServ and Nestoil, and stressed the need for the media to understand the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act and the board’s programmes.

Ezeobi said, “Greater awareness of the law and its implementation will help expose Anambra residents to business and employment opportunities in the oil and gas value chain.”

He maintained that the workshop was part of the board’s stakeholder engagement initiatives to improve public understanding of its mandate, programmes and opportunities under the Nigerian content policy. (The Nation)