By Anthony Isaac
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has noted that peace, stability and development of people of the Niger Delta would bring back investments to the region.
Sylva who spoke at the closing ceremony of the 3rd Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), on Wednesday in Abuja, urged Nigerians to project the country positively to the world.
He pointed out that the Federal Government was not insensitive to the plight of the oil and gas rich Niger Delta, stressing that bringing all the various interventions that have been put up in the region and sanitising their implementation process would go a long way in producing positive results.
He noted that the portrayal of Nigeria in bad light by its citizens was seriously affecting the inflow of capital and investments into the country.
The Minister stated that the issues of corruption and poverty which were equally prominent in other countries of the world could not be ignored.
He added that the importance of allowing the good deeds and innovations in the country to over ride the ills affecting the country to allow for a balance between the existing technical competence and access to capital.
He said: “NIPS is a testament to the fact that Nigeria has come of age in the petroleum industry. We have moved from being spectators, today we have Nigerians at the core of this industry; they own assets, they are participants in the industry, we now feel that we are of age to reach the rest of the world with our experiences and we have come up with NIPS which we all agree has been a success.
“Those who complain all the time about Nigeria, who writes all the negative things about Nigeria should realise that what we put out to the rest of the world affects us at many levels. Our people are now participants in these industries but one thing is lacking.
“Technically our people has become very competent, they can run this industry but this industry is a combination of two things; technical competence and access to capital.
“We cannot now access capital although we have the technical competence and one of the things that makes it difficult to access capital when it comes to Nigeria are the things that we put out there about Nigeria.
“We actually all the time add to the country risk, the perception about Nigeria because we joy saying all the evil things about Nigeria and really never dwell on those things that are great about Nigeria.
“Look at us today, since the 1960’s, we have made a lot of progress, somehow we have done a few things well and we must agree so when we go out there, before the next great edition of NIPS, we must all begin to contribute to the good story about Nigeria, let’s begin to say some of the good things that has happened in Nigeria, let’s begin to say there are some good movement in Nigeria.
“We are not where we want to be am the first to agree, corruption is quite pervasive am the first to agree, there is poverty I am the first to agree but, we are making steady progress I am also the first to agree”, he explained.
