Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi
Ambode, on Monday said the state had
officially joined Nigeria's league of oil
producing states with the discovery of crude
oil by Tunde Folawiyo Petroleum Company
Limited in Badagry.
Ambode made the declaration when the
management of the company led by Mr
Tunde Folawiyo, its Group Managing
Director, paid him a courtesy visit at the
Lagos House, Ikeja.
He commended the firm for its doggedness
and achievement
of the feat after 25 years
of hard work.
"I want to thank you very much for this and
I know that based on section 162 Sub-
Section 2 of the Nigeria Constitution, Lagos
has become an oil producing state.
"By the virtue of this achievement, the 13
per cent derivation that is due to oil
producing states, Lagos will start to partake
from it by your very good gesture. So, we
officially declare Lagos State an oil
producing state.
"We also notify the Federal Government by
this action that we would be sharing out of
the 13 per cent derivation.
"All we need do is to apply and then we
join," Ambode said.
The governor said that the feat had placed
Lagos in the history books as the first state
outside the Niger Delta to become an oil
producing state.
He said it had also opened up a new page
for revenue generation in the state.
"It also means that by the additional
revenue that is coming from this action, we
would have more resources to provide
infrastructure for Lagos residents.
"We are urging other investors and
businessmen to emulate this gesture, so
that beyond the issue of profit, you are
actually impacting positively on people, " he
said.
Ambode said that Tunde Folawiyo Petroleum
Company, being an indigenous firm, had
shown the possibilities and opportunities for
investors and businessmen willing to commit
their resources to local production.
"The Federal Government has always said
that we all need to look inwards and start to
do things for ourselves.
"Spending 25 years to be able to get to this
stage and getting something productive as
well as indigenous shows that anything is
possible in Nigeria.
“This discovery is coming at a time when we
are experiencing dwindling revenue from
different areas of our economy and when
the foreign exchange is highly turbulent.
"It gives one great hope that the future
prosperity of Nigeria is assured and is
secured by transactions like this,” he said.
Earlier, Folawiyo said that the discovery of
crude oil in Lagos took over 25 years to
achieve and had shown that there were
possibilities when government lent support
to indigenous investors and companies.
"We could have given up because it was a
very rough road, but the point is that only a
Nigerian company would have continued to
do what we did.
"The main crux is that we need government
and government needs us, and where
government supports assiduously, it can only
be success,” he said.
Folawiyo said the company had committed
about 400 million dollars to achieve the feat.
He said the current status of the oil well
had the capacity to produce at least 12,000
barrels per day, with a possibility of
increasing to 25,000 or 50,000 barrels per
day in the nearest future.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports
that Folawiyo presented Gov. Ambode with a
sample of the crude oil discovered by his
company.
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