Stakeholders react
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
At the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, President Muhammadu Buhari pledged Nigeria’s commitment to phase out fossil fuel as a major energy source by 2060. This is to align with the global target towards net zero carbon emission by 2050. A report has now been launched to assess Nigeria’s preparation.
The 91-page report titled: Energy Transition in Nigeria’s Oil-Rich Communities, is a collaborative effort led by Spaces for Change, Africa Centre for Energy, Extractive 360, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre with support from Ford Foundation. The report highlighted some areas of concern in Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan.
Executive Director of Spaces for Change, Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, says the report hangs on four legs. (i) Inclusiveness, which looks at whether the interests of communities are represented in the Energy Transition Plan. (ii) Citizens Impact, which studies the economic and environmental impact of resorting to gas as a transition fuel. (iii) Alternatives, that is, what alternatives exist for oil-producing communities in the face of the energy transition? (iv) Citizens participation, which is whether citizens are being carried along in the deliberation towards a new energy regime.
The immediate past commissioner for Energy and Natural Resources for Rivers State, Dr Peter N Medee, who reviewed the research report, said transitioning from brown energy to cleaner energy requires addressing certain fundamentals.
He said: “I looked at the report and saw some concerns being highlighted. The first concern here is that the Energy Transition Plan is silent on the communities. These communities are supposed to be the owners of these energy sources. Now, the Plan is not taking them into consideration.”
He added: “I am from Ogoni. Ogoni is sitting on Oil and Gas. Now, you are transiting from oil and you say your focus is gas. Now, your concern is not how to better my community. How are you sure you will get cooperation from the community? The new one you want to do, you are also not taking the communities into consideration. You are transiting from oil which I have. And what you are trying to do is to say that the oil which is a deposit that I have is going to be abandoned. The one you are abandoning, what happened to it?”
He said Nigeria abandoned coal and embraced fossil fuel to the detriment of the South East economy. He wondered: “We are seeing what is happening in the South East where a large deposit of coal exists. We are also aware of developed economies like China where coal is still being used. But we are asked to phase our own away. Assuming that the transition from coal has not taken place and coal is still being used, I foresee that some of the restiveness we are seeing there would not be the case.”
Programme Officer at Policy Alert, Mfon Gabriel, says the question of net zero in 2060 in Nigeria is not realistic. He says: “How can we talk about energy transition without the people? The people should be at the centre of the energy transition. What is transition without the workers in the oil and gas sector? What happens to them afterwards? What is even transitioning when the host communities don’t know what you are talking about? You don’t even take them into consideration when you are planning this.”
He alleged that the Nigerian government may just be putting on a show to give the international community the impression of working towards an energy transition but in actual fact, doing nothing about it.
Dr Louis Brown Ogbeifun of AfriTAL also said: “Let’s not our heart be troubled. The reason is that we may be in this for a long time. Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), for those who followed it know it took us about 20 years to advocate for it, especially the last ten years. CSOs made it possible, if not government wouldn’t have done anything. So, we have just started another transition, and I believe that with your effort, we are going to arrive at success. Why do I say let not our heart be troubled? Nigeria needs oil to exit oil. And whether we like it or not, oil is still going to be with us for a very long time because the transition in America cannot be like the transition in Nigeria.”
Also, the Executive Director of Gas Initiative, Reverend Father Edward Obi, said: “The report struck a chord with me when it talks about who is included and who is excluded. It also talks about participation. When people are allowed to participate in a project, they tend to own the process, and they tend to drive it. But when people feel excluded in something as seems the case in this energy transition, the people are already planning ways to subvert it, which is what I imagine will happen in the communities that are already feeling excluded. The evidence is there from this research.”
He added: “We must go back a little further to the problem of neo-liberal microeconomics because it’s a zero-sum thing. It’s all about crowding in and crowding out. It is about ownership that excludes every other person from what is owned. The oil companies are brought up in this Chicago model of Economics where you own and get all the advantage over every other person else. But it is up to us, this generation of thinkers and activists to be able to bring our own perspective to the discussion table. As we go into this discussion of the energy transition, we shouldn’t fail to let people know that their proposals are countercultural to our own way of thinking and behaviour.”
The Executive Director, of Centre for Transparency Advocacy, Faith Nwadishi added: “The entire conversation around energy transition should be about interpreting these terminologies in a way that people will understand it so that it becomes easy for our people to follow up. This research brings out very clearly the fact that we have an energy transition plan, we have climate change Act, but nothing really looks at the community people and how we are going to address that.”