PROPOSED TONGEJI REFINERY, HOW NOT TO PLAY OPPOSITION WITH DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

 PROPOSED TONGEJI REFINERY, HOW NOT TO PLAY OPPOSITION WITH DEVELOPMENT ISSUES.

Days back, the news hit the waves of a proposed 400,000 oil refinery that will be sited in Tongeji Island of Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun West Senatorial District of Ogun State. According to the information released by the brain behind the project, it will be executed in phases. Additional information has it that the state government has approved the acquisition of 200 hectares of land for the project. 

This shouild be a very good news not just to Ogun State but more to the people of Ogun West the host community for a project that will employ over 10,000 people. Ordinarily, regardless of political leaning, everyone in Ogun West should applaud the coming of the project considering the fact that the issue of the existence of crude oil in the earth crust of Tongeji Island is one that Ogun West people have been hoping it receives the attention of the right level of government and investors for decades.

Unfortunately, now that an investor has announced the intention of exploring for crude oil on the Island and along with that the building of a refinery after having gotten the nod of the government, some Ogun Westerners in the guise of playing politics which I will describe as retrogressive politics are playing to the gallery trying to discredit the government of Ogun State over the proposed project in order to score cheap political point.

They are claiming the project is not visible on the island and that the idea is a lie because according to them, a refinery cannot sit on 200 hectares. They are claiming a refinery will require more land and more than $3bn dollars earmarked by the investors for the project.

What this anti establishment have forgotten is the theory of credibility. How credible are they in the case that will make the public go with their attempt to paint the project as one that is not feasible? The investors are into the business of refining in the practical sense while the antagonists of this growth and development engendering idea are talking from the little they picked from science textbooks as students. They have no proof to show they are in the on-the-field business of refinery or oil exploration.

The pseudo holes they are trying to pick are the size of the acquired land for the project, 200 hectares that they are saying is small for a refinery. Some are saying the estimate of the investor, $3bn is not enough to get a refinery running. Some are saying there are no infrastructure on the island to support the execution of a project of that magnitude. 

On the size of the land for the project which they are claiming is 200 hectares, in 2014, Lagos State government approved 250 hectares of land for a refinery. This should mean that 200 hectares can sit a refinery. It is not the size of the land but the technology that matters in this age. This is not 2014, this is 2022, almost a decade after that Lagos approval. Clearly, it is not the land size that is an issue, the real problem is that those saying the land is small are the ones that should upgrade themselves to the reality of modern day advancement of technology. They need to unlearn and relearn. The project will be in phases so, additional land maybe acquired . The news I read said the refinery would be in Ipokia not Tongeji Island and land required is 800 hectares not 200 as the antagonists want us to believe in their feeble attempt to score cheap political point.  As a matter of fact, who among the antagonists have seen the documents of the project. I do know that in Obasanjo days, a refinery was approved for Ipokia town. If it is the same investors, then there is land enough in Ipokia.

No investor would want to leave lucrative project unfinished. The antagonists should wash off the scale of retrogressive politics covering their faces and face the fact that the brain behind the refinery idea in an uncharted territory would not have left anything to chances. They would have done a perfect job in calculating their estimate for the project. It is the oil industry that we are talking about, it is no place for jokers. The investors are better than the antagonists and are much more credible in the area of costing for a refinery because they have shown a proposal to Ogun government and are dangling a federal government approval for exploration. I will go with them as per credibility than armchair oil and gas experts.

Saying the territory in question lacks the facilities that will support a project the size of a refinery is wrong, very wrong. Lekki Deep Seaport has just been completed. There was no port no nothing around the place it was built before the contractors moved to site. Today a state of the tech seaport is about contributing to the growth of Lagos and Nigeria from a jungle couple of years back. Investors in the heavily technical industry like the oil and gas would have gotten all areas covered. To have gotten a federal government approval and be able to convince a governor who sharpened his business skill in the oil and gas industry is no job for any day to day regular guy. 

The project is not a state government project. Why say the government is lying, why say the project is a deceit from the state government? It is not gonna be funded from the state purse? Why raining toxic words on a proposal that we all should welcome? Governments have come and gone at the local, state and federal level and even at traditional level but Dangote Cement Plant in Ibese is still standing at least for the next 90 years as an employer of labour on Ogun West soil?

It is time Ogun West people stop the killing of beautiful things coming to our land with hell inspire political game. No Egba person in opposition to ex- governor Amosun faulted his attempt to upgrade Mapoly to a university and wanted another federal university (of medicine) in Ogun Central. He was not faulted for building bridges where they were not really needed in his Ogun Central. None faulted him when he took airport idea to Wasinmi. No Ogun Easterner playing opposition has faulted Governor Dapo Abiodun for taking airport to the east and an agric processing zone. When ex- governor Amosun wanted to scrap Tai Solarin College of Education in Ogun East, the easterners were unanimous in confronting him against the idea. No one playing a kind of opposition politics went against the position of his people that TASUED must stay alive in Ijagun.

Ogun West be wise. Attacking the proposed refinery in Tongeji is toxic to the growth and development of Ogun West that we all are craving. We should play wisdom inspired politics.

Kehinde Akinlade ©️

Ogun West.