Gov. Dapo Abiodun of Ogun yesterday (Friday, August 9) presented documents allocating 100 hectares of land to the Nigerian Navy for the establishment of a Naval Base and Dockyard in the State.
The Governor presented the documents to the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Adm. Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, when he paid a courtesy visit to the Naval Headquarters in Abuja.
Abiodun said the visit was to deepen collaboration between the Nigerian Navy and the State government, especially as Ogun has attained frontier status and is expecting the commencement of oil exploration in its domains.
According to him, Ogun will be declared an oil producing State hence, we need a Naval Base and Dockyard to protect facilities in no distant time.
“Only about three or four months ago, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited came and declared that Ogun State had now qualified for frontier status,” Abiodun told the CNS.
“They declared us one of the states that will begin to explore oil in frontier-based status and that is a status that is declared in areas where they believe that there are petroleum resources available from all locations.
“This is justified to them because we obtained a status that are probably about 60 years old from Shell, showing that Shell had drilled some wells around the other side of Tongeji Island about 60 years ago.
“But as soon as they found oil in Delta, they abandoned those wells and never came back.”
The Governor said that exploration of oil meant that the state has one of the most abundant deposits of bitumen, saying that Ogun would be declared an oil producing state in no distant time, disclosing that a team was sent to the State to take a look at the sites that would be suitable to have a naval base and a naval dockyard.
“Another reason why we thought this was important besides the frontier business status is the Natural Gas Project, the LNG project, which had been on the drawing board for several years,” Governor Abiodun stressed.
“And because we were also fore thinking and seeing what happened in view of the Russian-Ukrainian war, where the whole world is beginning to experience a shortage of the supply of natural gas, we knew that in no distant future, this project will move back on stream.
“We are aware that one of the conditions for such a huge project that would cost tens of billions of dollars would be to have a naval presence because of the size of that presence.
“Today I’m happy to confirm that the state has finally allocated 100 hectares of land to the Nigerian Navy to establish a Naval Base and Dockyard.”
Responding, the CNS said the plans to establish a Naval Base and Dockyard in Ogun stemmed from the need to protect critical investments, stating that Ogun being an industrial hub and strategic state requires the presence of the Nigerian Navy to secure investments.
He assured that the Navy high command would do what is necessary to ensure the Base comes alive in the next few years.
He, however, urged the Governor to provide the service with the Certificate of Occupancy to enable the team return to site and commence preparations.
“We listened to the proposal the Governor has towards developing the State all geared towards promoting economic activities.
“He proposed molecular LNG and molecular blue seaport and also the development of the Tongeji Island; these are investments that will attract a number of US dollars of up to $10bn into the Nigerian economy,” CNS Ogalla said, adding that “these investments can’t be without being provided security for.”
“Our duty is to make sure we fulfil this aspect, which is provision of security. We’ll move without waiting to establish these facilities; we will take steps towards identifying suitable locations for this Naval Base,” he surmised. (NAN)
