Dr. Joseph King E. Odhomo, chairman, Pejoe Development Co. Ltd., Upstream and Downstream sector; petroleum marketers, transporters, industrial electrical, engineering works, oil field services, projects management and general contractors.

In this interview with Saturday Vanguard Business, he reveals the reasons why training should be on-going in the Nigerian oil and gas local content sector. He also agreed that Nigeria can end the habit of importing if we do the necessary things needed to be done in the system. Excerpts:

What kind of service does your company render to the economy of Nigeria?

I am into the business of Oil and Gas, precisely petroleum marketer and also give services to oil companies, the IOC. IOC are the International Oil Companies like Total Plc, Exxon Mobil, Agip etc. We have been with them since 1999.

What type of service is your company rendering them?

We are into the up stream. The up stream is the ability of supporting the multinational oil companies operations far in the offshore. We supply pipes, valves, flanges and equipment like tractors and some other requirements which the operations request through us and we bring them from outside the country. We have done series of importation from America, Germany and UK, for Exxon Mobil’s operation etc.

Odhomo

Having travelled far and wide, how can you compare the level of training in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria and technology with the international?

Training is a thing which we have not looked into properly, as harnessing someone who is coming up and has grown to service the ideals and knowledge by aligning your potentials to brighten up, brush up because if you are trained today and you don’t exercise it or probably you don’t go for the latest training, virtually you will remain dormant where you are than when you are practising it in order to help you be in tune with latest system so far. But when you compare it to overseas, they can spend more in training you than earning fat salaries unlike Nigeria where we see them paying fat salaries and that is the end and we see training as a stressful exercise.

A situation where you feel you are helping to train others also you are training yourself, whoever is trained is trained to give the best. What I’m trying to say is that in Nigeria people see the salary being paid just to get money. The money they want to make today is just to give themselves an instant comfort, what about tomorrow? But you could as well decide to acquire on-going technology abroad and bring it back home to Nigeria. And you start practising, because when you are trained, you are exposed to some knowledge, experience, people, material technology and handling. Nigeria should look up to that even as a small unit. For instance, if you don’t have the capacity to send your workers overseas, you could look for partners in South Africa, even in Ghana or other West African countries.

We have always been embarking on importation especially in the area of Oil and Gas, is it not possible to get our own plants here even if it involves getting personnel from abroad in order to reduce importation?

Just to mention it,I have been encouraged so much about a gentleman called Mr Simeon Moju the owner of Special Piping Materials Nigeria Limited, who manufactures and also supplies gaskets, valves and flanges in Warri by the flyover close to the refinery. I was so impressed and I couldn’t reach him until the latest oil and gas conference in America where we actually met. He actually demonstrated he is into it and has taken the technology that is equally found outside the country back home. Also Mr. Isaac Botosan the MD/CEO of the Esthon Nigeria Limited is doing fine in the oil and gas sector. Not forgetting Mr Billy Mami the chairman of Bila Integrated Services Limited located in Warri, If everybody actually has in mind that we want to develop this country, we should provide an environment that would promote such technology here. So I encourage bringing that kind of quality and quantity in production of products that we need to service our industries and operations in Nigeria. This is one of the things Nigerian local content has actually done and we need to encourage that to see how that is carried out properly so that in the next ten to twenty years we should not be thinking of importation in a higher proportion.

The local content is actually to harness and improve in the area of employment and thereby reducing a whole lot of expatriates coming into the country by the individuals taking over some of the key areas of operation. And probably that is where the issue of training comes in because if you are being trained overseas you would know what is needed. The country will need less expatriates guiding it technically and otherwise in the industry whereby you must have achieved two things – employment and giving the best of what you need as well as to be compared to what is obtainable from a Briton or American. you can give us the same quality they offer, it saves us from employing many foreigners to do the same job we could handle ourselves. Again the local content is a thing that would make a lot of way in making our economy grow stronger and as well, retaining it because it’s going to be weakening us because the raw materials are being taken over there and they refine and repackage them to us. After all, we have our raw materials which are produced here, using it will enrich our economy also would turn around within our own domain. For instance,A drilling rig you bring in from overseas, when you want to service it you eventually take it back to its home land, America, Italy, Holland etc for servicing or overhauling. If it’s produced here, technical know how is highly on ground here, you would find that you don’t need to go far. All you need do if it develops a fault, you call on the technician right here for repairs. Most of our equipment are grounded because of one or two areas which they needed to fix up when faulty especially you want to send it to overseas for servicing will lead to delay in operation. The local content has come a long way and actualizing and exercising the idea in Nigeria is important to help the industries to the next level.

Is it that government has not provided conducive environment or Nigerians are not ready for quality training that ours is not working here?

It’s in two parts – presenting yourself for a quality training because you must take it up as a journey you embark on, by giving yourself what you want to be, train and come out to say yes, I wanted to be trained. Again, the Federal Government has actually accepted passing into law as an Act for the local content to come to be, but making it flexible for people to function properly in another area. It should be handled properly because when you put a law in place you make it workable also, if it’s not workable then you have not done anything meaningful. Just like the banking industry has failed to a low level, standing out to encourage people to come out of failure is important. But majorly what many of these people were doing is sourcing money from banks and financial houses to develop or establish one or two things but there was no genuine act in what they were doing in the actual sense of it. Otherwise if you take money that you want to establish a factory if you are honest and genuine, within the next five years you can’t remain in the same level. If you are in marketing the same thing, two to three years, by the fifth year you must be celebrating success, that is what I believe in. So making the local content law workable is very important because if you tie up some areas that local areas will be difficult to cross, it will not achieve the desired results.

But I believe we can achieve what other countries have achieved that is the essence of it. I know everybody must not go into the production of equipment, some will go into supply, distributorship, logistic etc. I’m saying that Federal Government can arrange for seminars for small scale industry, middle scale industry and top range industry. Even the top range industry needs training.