Blue Economy needs blueprint for actionable plan in Nigeria – Opuala-Charles

 

Sylva Opuala-Charles, a professor and president of Garden City Premier Business School, Port Harcourt, and one-time commissioner for Finance in Bayelsa State, has experience that spans both the public and private sectors of the economy. In this interview with SAMUEL ESE in Port Harcourt,

he discussed the huge potentials of Nigeria’s Blue Economy, the challenge of environmental pollution, and infrastructure, but stressed the need for action by developing a blueprint to galvanised action among the three tiers of government. But he also believes that the organized private sector led by the various chambers of commerce, BRACED Commission and governments of South-South states should start the conversations. Excerpts:

There has been this talk about the Blue Economy in recent times and its huge potentials. What are the prospects of the Blue Economy in Nigeria?

The Blue Economy actually has to do with the sustainable use, access and conservation of sea and ocean resources for economic development. It is quite massive if you look at our coastline of about 853 kilometres and over 10,000 kilometres of inland waterways. We are a really blessed country in terms of ocean resources and waterways. But, how do we maximize them? If you look at the global economy today, you can see that the Blue Economy is doing close to about $3.0 trillion, which is quite big. And out of that $3.0 trillion, the jobs that come from it are almost 600 million.

In Nigeria, the situation is not as palatable as that, the reason being that pollution is a big issue because when you talk about sustainability, you are talking about preserving it for future generations.

When we were young, you catch kill fish and see big fishes around, even close to our waterways; I’m not talking about the sea and ocean. But today, it’s not the same situation. Oil exploration activities has really driven away all the fish, scattered the water and everything is really bad. And that is the flip side of these multinational corporations that are checked properly by the government.

Inasmuch as we have a lot of opportunities from that, we are not seeing the impact. At another forum, I actually said probably we’ll require about $12 billion to clean up the waterways for us to actually maximise the benefits of the Blue Economy.

Internationally, we are talking about shipping, maritime and other things. Even the ocean related industries that are there such as pharmaceuticals are very big. But, we are yet to see that happening here, so if you look at Nigeria today, you can possibly estimate – look at the Ministry of Blue Economy, the former Governor of Osun State is the minister – they were talking about N700 billion in 2023. This year they’ve announced almost N1.7 trillion.

You can see that in terms of the size of the Blue Economy, it has actually grown widely in terms of revenue. The revenue profile has increased from N700 billion in 2023 to N1.7 trillion in 2026, which is more than double what it was in 2023. So, it’s a very big economy. There are fears that Nigeria’s Blue Economy potentials may not be fully realized because the economy itself, the GDP of Nigeria today, has shrunken because of what happened in the economy, to about $300 billion. So, the Blue Economy cannot be bigger than that. It’s not showing as a significant contributor to the GDP yet.

But I can say that the potential probably lies between $250 billion to $500 billion in terms of the Blue Economy – what it can do in terms of job creation because when you talk of economic development, you are talking about a level of wealth creation, that aspect of what the economy can do for the country, which is quite massive. But, has the government focused its attention on that aspect? Probably, you can look at a government like Lagos State, which is doing a lot of things. Like in Port Harcourt, how much has been put into that economy?

Somebody is at Okrika coming to Port Harcourt, do they do ferries? What type of ferry? Beautiful ferries that they do? If you go to Cross River State and Akwa Ibom, they are doing ferries, but in Rivers State, we are not seeing ferries nor in Bayelsa.

Yes, people use those boats just to roam and come back, not as if they’re doing tourism. Tourism is massive, but because of the issue of insecurity too, the kidnapping, tourism that is supposed to be a key aspect of this business is not there.

I think at the global level, tourism alone is doing about 33 per cent of global GDP. That means it’s quite massive. Shipping is about 22 per cent. Between these two, you’re talking about almost 60 per cent before you talk about the ocean-based industries which is about 16 per cent, and pharmaceuticals and other industries that are related to the ocean.

Now, bringing it back home to Nigeria, you may not see that level of growth, but the potentials are there. It has to be intentional for the government to take action.

First of all, you have to ensure that pollutions are published and people who pollute our areas are punished. Look at this Ogoni cleanup that has taken so many years. It’s almost 30 years now and they’re still talking about it. They had to set up HYPREP and so on.

Ogoni people have been very staunch in refusing to allow any drilling unlike other communities in the riverine areas. We have not been bold to do what the Ogonis have done to say, ‘you can’t come in unless you do this’. So, they have tried to see how the area can be cleaned up.

These are the impediments because environmental remediation is very important for the Blue Economy to thrive. Without that you can’t achieve it. It’s a beautiful name to call, Blue Economy.

Blue Economy means that you have been able to regenerate – continuous regeneration: the sustainable management and regeneration of the marine environment, that is what it is.

From what you are saying now, does it mean that the future, as far as the Blue Economy is concerned for Nigeria, or what can be done in the interim to ensure that small businesses benefit from the Blue Economy?

Quite a lot can still be achieved, but what I am saying is that the major impediment I see there is the pollution because with pollution, you cannot do regeneration. Just like when you want to enter Ogoni, they say come and first cleanup Ogoni land before you can come and do another exploration. The discussion about the Blue Economy must also take care of that (pollution). The oil majors themselves left the onshore to go to the offshore because they have destroyed this side, so they have to go offshore. That’s what they are doing because they are not interested in helping us to regenerate our environment, which is the area that we are concerned with.

So, while we are talking about Blue Ocean and we are excited about Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean, we must realize that there’s a lot of work to be done, do a lot of cleanup. That’s the point I’m making.

It’s not bleak, but there must be intention. You can have a blueprint, ocean blueprint. Look at a state like Rivers, they don’t have a blueprint like that. Bayelsa does not have a blueprint like that. I can’t see it. If you Google it, if it’s there, you’ll see it. I can’t see it. It’s not there.

If you want to take something seriously then you must have a blueprint, a document that says this is the way that we want to go. It doesn’t exist.

But I have said the potential is probably from $250 billion to $500 billion. I have also mentioned to you that, in Nigeria today, in terms of revenue from that sector, the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy headed by the former Governor of Osun State, said they did about N1.7 trillion or so this year, which is better than the N700 billion in 2023.

So, you can see that the revenue is coming. But, in terms of what we can get, that’s a fraction, a little fraction of what we can get. If we really do the right thing, if the right steps are taken, then we’ll begin to see the results.

Renewable energy is another emerging industry, like water, wind, waves; all that are being used to generate power. Power is the major problem Nigeria is having. Most of us are using solar panels in our houses, but we that are in the riverine area should be talking about wind energy, which is being used in the UK and most of the countries in Europe.

Have we seen any windmills here? No windmills! So, these are the things that we’re talking about. If we are deliberate about it and begin to build windmills, using waves, hydropower, these are the type of things you have to use to generate power.

The discussion about even power has not been including wind. With all the riverine areas that we have around, if we are talking about almost 853 kilometres of coastline and 10,000 kilometres of inland waterways and there’s no discussion about wind or hydro, or waves to generate power, something is missing.

So, I think the first thing if we want to make progress in any area, we need to have a blueprint on that area. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a local government that is doing it, a sub-national government like a state government or the national government.

At the national level I think there’s some sort of blueprint that they have, but there must be synchronisation with the state or even the local government area to be able to harness these benefits that can come from the Blue Economy. It’s important to do that.

I think the first time we saw something close to that was when we talked about the NEEDS document when Soludo was an Economic Adviser to Obasanjo before he moved to the CBN.

You see the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDS) and Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (LEEDS, you know.

That was then, so something like that needs to trickle down from the national level to the local government level to be able to make the desired impact because it’s very important.

Now, the oil and gas that we are enjoying today, most of it comes from the riverine areas. It comes from the waterways, from the aquatic environment. A significant portion of it also comes from the onshore (land areas).

But, those land areas, if they are landlocked, how do you move the oil to sell it? It’s through the waterways, through the riverine areas that ships come in so the port itself is part of the aquatic environment, marine environment, the Blue Economy that matters because you can’t keep the oil without selling it.

Even if we don’t want to talk about the oil because we are talking about sustainability, in the context of the Blue Economy, without the ports, which are also part of the infrastructure of the Blue Economy, the oil that you have, you can’t sell it.

Today, Dangote has the biggest single train refinery in the world in Lekki in Lagos with a 650,000-barrel refining capacity. He wants to make it about 1.4 million barrels. That refinery alone is employing 11,000 expatriates, and it’s part of the aquatic environment.

So, what we are saying is that there’s a linkage between the oil and gas drive that the country has and the Blue Economy. And the point we are making is that when you are doing the exploitation, it should not destroy the aquatic environment because they go together.

And tourism is another big thing. If you go to a lot of countries today, people travel around, enjoy themselves in those environments. They do that because there’s a clean aquatic environment. So, it’s important for the government to know that first, we have this, what do we want to do with it?

If the global is talking about $3.0 trillion and we are saying that in Nigeria we have the potential to do up to $500 billion, so how do we achieve that without a blueprint?

For cleanup we say we need $12 billion to be able to do the cleanup of the aquatic environment in Nigeria to be able to harness more of the potentials. All that will be part of the blueprint. But, it’s important that the industries themselves that can come out of the Blue Economy, we begin to diagnose them.

Pharmaceutical industries, fish terminals in Brass, in Bonny and other areas that they can be found because if you go out to Brass and Bonny, if you go out a little from the shore you’ll see trawlers from other countries like China fishing in our coastal waters.

Initially, when Rivers State was coming up in the ‘70s, the state government had a lot of trawlers. Where are those trawlers? They were not sustainable because there was no sustainable plan for them. There was no blueprint.

Let us not do things and hoc. One thing that Nigerians are good at is this temporary way of doing things – not doing them in a sustainable manner. And that is why we are careful about using the word sustainable, conservation of the sea, the ocean resources for economic development.

You talked about the need for a blueprint from the top to the local governments. Discussions about it should start. So, who starts the discussions about the blueprint on the Blue Economy to harness the resources for the growth and development of the nation?

There should be synergy between the organized private sector and the government. I’m happy that you have come through the President of PHCCIMA, Dr. Mrs. Chinyere Nwoga. I like her approach because they want to be able to see an expansion in the economy for the benefit of the private sector.

That’s why they’re doing this. They see that a lot of opportunities exist so they can they can drive the process. They can even do a conference and call the government to conference to participate with them.

Rivers State is one of the biggest economies in the country, probably second to Lagos in all ramifications apart from Akwa Ibom that is coming up very strong. So, I think it’s important to do that.

There’s also one other thing that is there. I learnt there’s a Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well, which the NDDC is funding, and then the BRACED Commission.

And since this area, the South-South, is the hub of oil and gas, and then the Blue Economy; apart from Lagos that is another very good waterway, this is the centre of the Blue Economy.

So, there are key stakeholders that can be identified. We can identify the chambers of commerce, both the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, the Niger Delta Chamber of Commerce, we can identify the Rivers State Government and other state governments, Delta, Bayelsa and all that, which come under the BRACED Commission, although the BRACED Commission is not making much noise these days – Ambassador Keshi.

So, we can bring all that together, set up something. So, the blueprint can be arranged through the organized private sector led by the chambers of commerce with the state governments, with the BRACED Commission, and from there they can drive it to the centre. For me, that’s the way to go.