What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

While acknowledging divestment would boost local capacity in the petroleum sector, Osifo urged the regulators to carry the union along in any divestment process.

According to Osifo, some companies bought the assets but could not manage them, leading to job losses.

“On divestment, the challenge we have is that we have practical cases of companies that bought some of these assets and these assets are depleting today because they can’t manage them very well. Some that purchased some assets from Shell can’t even meet their cash call.

“It is a challenge. You heard the case of a company that was forcefully taken over by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. The company bought some of the Shell assets those days. So, these companies are practical cases of local companies that bought over some of the fields hitherto managed by the IOCs. But they couldn’t operate because all they were doing was extracting oil till it got dry.

“You know, the oil and gas business is not cheap. The oil and gas business is a petrodollar business and is highly capital-intensive. TotalEnergies built one field alone with $16bn. How many banks in Nigeria would be able to fund a project of that magnitude? If you join all the banks’ capital bases, I’m not sure they can fund a $16bn project. That shows you how capital-intensive the projects are,” Osifo posited.

• Read More