SPECIAL REPORT: Katsina farmers lament impact of climate changeSPECIAL REPORT: Insecurity, other factors limit cashew farming in NigeriaNigerian airports: Save our shame!, By Wole OlaoyeSPECIAL REPORT: Katsina farmers lament impact of climate changeSPECIAL REPORT: Insecurity, other factors limit cashew farming in NigeriaNigerian airports: Save our shame!, By Wole OlaoyeThe stakeholders made the call while speaking at the ongoing 2024 Nigeria Oil and Gas Energy Week in Abuja on Monday.
“If you do not do that, what you are going to see is a typical example where investments come to a country, stay, and the country becomes a major producer for 50 years, and the whole money will just be drained out of that country. The locals will not be able to develop,” Mr Azudialu-Obiejesi said. “And there are a lot of people who are briefcase contractors who don’t have capacity, but they will tell you they have connections and because of that, they go and bid for jobs they cannot do. So these things have to be checked so that when you are bidding for a job in the oil and gas industry, you compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges.
“And that is what the African continental free trade zone is trying to achieve so that they will break up the barriers, break up all the things that are inhibiting other countries from going to other countries to do business,” he noted. He reiterated the board’s commitment to giving Nigerian companies, regardless of their type, first consideration while ensuring that local content is not compromised based on standards.“So we have pushed the discussion around standardisation by making sure that the Nigerian content equipment certificate that you need to obtain for you to be able to participate in the industry has elements of certification, be it ISO certification, process certification, and so on.