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Lagos. — Social and economic development has long been touted as the way to revive the fortunes of Nigeria’s impoverished north and prevent legions of disaffected young men turning to radical Islam. But Boko Haram violence has scuppered progress, particularly from one potentially lucrative source of revenue — the oil found under the Lake Chad Basin in the country’s far northeast.
Nigeria struck black gold in the Kukawa area of Borno state in 2012, with estimates that 100 billion cubic metres of deposits lie beneath the lake and its arid hinterland.
The discovery raised hopes not just because of its potential to transform the region economically but to also help boost Nigeria’s oil reserves by three billion barrels to 40 billion barrels. But the former head of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, said in March that plans to start production had been put on hold because of the conflict. Geologists, engineers and other technical staff quit while the country’s main oil unions warned workers to stay away, putting paid to extraction and further exploration. — AFP.
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