The Managing Director, Ariboil Company Ltd., Mr Stephen Aribeana, has urged the Federal Government to engage the right expertise to solve the challenges confronting the power, oil and gas sectors in the country.
Aribeana, one of the exhibitors at the ongoing 2022 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, United States.
According to him, until the Federal Government puts the right people in the right positions, Nigeria will keep making the same mistakes.
He noted that people all over the world are saving the world, adding that in Nigeria, the situation is opposite, saying, “no one can save us”.
He urged the government to find the right people that could address some of the country’s challenges head-on and produce lasting solutions.
He said: “Why doesn’t the government find the right people, put round pegs in round holes to get the right result. We don’t put a square peg in a round hole, it will never work.
“We keep doing it and putting the wrong people in the wrong positions and keep making the same mistake every year. We know what to do but we will not do it.
“Go everywhere in the United States, the best doctors are Nigerians, in NASA, some of the smartest people there are Nigerians.
“In UK, Russia and Japan, Nigerians are everywhere, we are smart and we know what to do. Are we going to engage the smart people to do the job? No.”
Aribeana also urged the government to tackle the poor power supply in the country, adding that the increasing price of diesel is destroying business in Nigeria.
“We don’t have power. Why don’t we have power, it is because our government refuses to engage the right hands to man this sector.
“200,000 million people, we only have 8,000 megawatts (MW) but we are distributing 3,500MW out of this number, and we are supplying to Niger Republic from the same.
“They don’t have power plant in Niger and in Nigeria. If I am lucky, I get power for two hours.
“Does this make sense? All I have been doing is chasing how to buy generators to do my work. Now, I am chasing how not to use diesel because we have to use gas because it is cheaper than diesel.
“Eight hundred and fifty naira (N850) a litre and I am buying it like there’s no tomorrow.
“Let our government find people who know what to do and how to solve the challenges confronting the sector. It is not the case of embezzling funds, there will still be more,” he said.
He said that Nigeria needs over 20,000 megawatts of power and only produces a fraction of it after many years, adding that other African countries were doing much better than Nigeria.
Aribeana said: “They import expired tanks every day and there’s accident all over the place, DPR knows. Let us get it done so that Nigerians will benefit from being Nigerians.
“The major oil companies are not interested in what is good for us, Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, among others. They are only interested in what they can get out of us.
“Everybody knows what is going on and what it will take to fix things but won’t. At the end of the day we complain, what are we leaving for our children?
“The government saw the population exploding, and did nothing about it until everything went out of hand. Was anybody making sure that there’s enough power? No.
“You wake up one day and you now know that we need 20,000 megawatts of power and after how many years, we can’t even produce it.
“We are only doing 8,000 megawatts. South Africa is doing 40,000 megawatts and others that are not the same size as us.
“How many of them have power outages like us? No, they don’t. Indiscipline on our own part led us to where we are presently and we know what to do to get out of it,” he said. (NAN)
