A chartered marine surveyor and ship captain, Anthony Onoharigho, has disclosed that 98 per cent of the crude oil lifted in Nigeria is done by foreign vessels.
Onoharigho, in a chat in Lagos recently, reiterated that most of the product lifting are done by private individuals, who are portfolio shipowners.
“In the maritime industry, Nigeria has no single ship to lift our product. Most of our products are lifted by private individuals who are portfolio ship owners and they are all foreigners.
98 per cent of the crude being lifted in this country from my research is by foreigners and the remaining 2 per cent are trading unclean products in our territorial waters,” he claimed.
He said that oil lifting has the potential of creating huge employment opportunities for Nigerians and also raising foreign earnings for the country.
“We started our crude marketing with some Asian countries. Iran had about 60 vessels lifting their product some years back and they still do so through cost insurance and freight but we don’t even have a single carrier to transport our crude.
And we have had very educated and enlightened people run the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for years. l don’t understand why we hate to see Nigeria grow. Everybody is just concerned about himself and the narrow benefits they get. This is an area that can create huge employment for Nigerian youths and raise our foreign earning power.”
According to him, “The minimum number of people one tanker can take is about 40 to 50. If you employ our youths, I assume they will pay them in hard-currency.
“They will come back to this country and use the money to buy things in our market and that will increase our Gross Domestic Product in terms of inflow of currency.”
