Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce set to bridge N25 trillion gap between S/West and oil region

The Chamber of Commerce midwifed by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has pledged to frowned at what it calls a N25 trillion gap between the Niger Delta region and the South-West Nigeria.

This was the major fallout of a roundtable organized in Port Harcourt last week by the Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce Industry Trade Mines and Agriculture (NDCCITMA).

The NDDC is seen as an effort to intervene in the development drive of the Niger Delta region, but it wants to intervene in the economy through a special purpose vehicle, the NDCCITMA, to boost the economy of the region and insulate the agency from political interference.

The business roundtable organized in PH is to provide an opportunity for business men and women, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders from the oil region to ask critical questions and proffer solutions.

One major fallout was the need to close the prosperity gap with the Lagos zone as well as diversification of the region’s economy as well as a focus on a ‘Niger Delta beyond oil and gas’.

The roundtable pondered on how Lagos is doing $200m per year export by air while Port Harcourt is struggling with only $20m. This could be why the Chamber of Commerce was established to redefine the business directive of the region.

Ideire Gogo-Ogan, chairman of the board of NDCCITMA compared the regional economy of the South West region topping the national chart with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $59 trillion that of the Niger Delta region occupying the second place with a GDP of $34 trillion, leaving a gap of N25 trillion (equivalent), hence the need to act fast.

Gogo-Ogan emphasized the need to revive the hospitality industry in the Niger Delta citing the once famous Obudu Cattle Ranch and the Calabar Carnival, amongst others.

Gogo-Ogan assured that the Chamber would take the campaign of economic renaissance and diversification to all the states of the region and work to implement policies and programmes that would deliver the desired result. “This is to ensure that the Niger Delta region reached its full economic potential.”

Gogo-Ogan faulted the era of militancy and other forms of agitations for its failure to yield any result but rather accounted for the economic set back of the region.

To address key challenges plaguing the economy of the region, the NDCCITMA announced an economic and investment summit that would be the largest to ever have happened in the region.

As a prelude to the mega business and investment festival, the NDCCITMA came up with the Niger Delta Business Roundtable (ND-BRT), providing a platform for stakeholders to highlight emerging business opportunities beyond oil and gas and to promote public-private dialogue to enhance ease of doing business in the region.

Access to funds was a key question raised at the event. Another was support for small and medium scale businesses in the region. The event also focused on producing actionable recommendations and partnerships for the growth of the Niger Delta economy.

Simbi Wabote, the keynote speaker at the Business Roundtable, said since the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in today’s Bayelsa State, the Niger Delta has produced over 80% of Nigeria’s export earnings , driving national growth through petroleum resources.

Wabote stated that the significant contributions of Niger Delta have positioned the region as the nation’s energy hub, with the presence of the Bonny LNG export terminal, the Forcados export terminal in Delta State and the Eni (now Oando) terminal in Delta State.

Worthy of note, he stated, was the fact that huge resources of the Niger Delta have come at a price. “The environmental degradation caused by oil spills has affected the ecosystem, farmlands, fishes, Wabote lamented.

Assessing the current challenges that must be addressed by the region to harness it’s potential, Wabote, an ex-Shell staff as well as past executive secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), identified high poverty rate and unemployment as dominant in the Niger Delta despite the huge wealth it spilled. According to Wabote, this youth unemployment fueled militancy and attacks on oil assets (now pkofire).