Jonathan: No laws were designed to protect Nigerians when oil was discovered

Former President Goodluck Jonathan says no laws were designed to protect Nigerians when oil was discovered in 1956.

Jonathan spoke on Wednesday night at the Champions of Nigerian Content Awards Dinner organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state.

Jonathan said a Ugandan once told him how he developed skills before signing an agreement with international oil companies (IOCs) to avoid mistakes made by Nigeria.

“I brought up this story because I used to tell people that if at the beginning of the oil discovery we had laws designed to protect us, Nigeria would have gone further than this. But we didn’t have those kinds of laws,” he said.

“Of course, the first law that controlled the oil industry was the Mineral Oil Ordinance of 1886, I’m not sure if Nigeria played any role in developing that law.

“The second one was the Mineral Oil Ordinance of 1914, when we amalgamated. I don’t know how many Nigerians have any knowledge about petroleum law.”

Jonathan said the bill that became the law that started the oil industry was the Petroleum Act of 1969, which came after the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in 1956 and after independence in 1960.

“The next proposed law was the Petroleum Industry Act that we worked on during my government, but luckily, in 2021, it was passed into law,” he said.

JONATHAN: WHY LAW WAS PASSED TO SUPPORT LOCAL CONTENT

The former president said the Local Content Act was passed in April 2010 when the minister of petroleum told him there was a private law sponsored by senator Lee Maeba to promote local content in the oil and gas industry.

“What is the story about the Nigerian content, or what’s popularly called the local content? I signed that law in April 2010 because of the experience I had in the Year 2000,” he said.

“Then, I was the deputy governor of Bayelsa state, and I led a trade delegation to China. And because we are from the Niger Delta, an oil-producing area, we decided to visit some of the oil cities.

“When he visited what the Chinese call the oil capital, Daqing, they took us through their library, through their museum. They told us stories from the beginning of the mining activities up to that time.

“Remember that the Western companies discovered oil in commercial quantities in Nigeria in 1956. The same Western companies discovered oil in commercial quantities in China in 1968, two years later.”

Jonathan said that by 2000, most of the needs of the oil industry in China were manufactured locally — a situation that was not obtainable in Nigeria.

The former president said he immediately signed the bill after his experience in China.