afrol News, 17 November - As the world's sixth largest oil exporter and a great producer for over 50 years, the vast poor majority of Nigerians often wonder where the large wealth has gone. Indeed, Nigeria's public finances and the general revenue level do not look bad at all, as top-level politicians and businessmen have revealed this week. It is just poverty that seems endless.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday said his country's external reserves recorded significant improvements. In September, Nigeria's reserves stood at US$ 33 billion but it shot up to US$ 42 billion in November. Not bad for a country ranked among the 20 least developed in the world by the UN's Human Development Index earlier this month.

At a breakfast meeting with the nation's star footballers, President Obasanjo disclosed that his regime had found US$ 3.7 billion in the country's secret safe when he assumed office in May 1999.

For the first time in history, the Nigerian government had appointed professional external fund managers for its foreign reserves and assets. The decision was designed to align Nigeria with best global practices.

According to 'Nigeria News Agency', this will "allow for professional management, diversification of investment, and to leverage on the expertise of the foreign banks to transform Nigerian banks into global financial institutions."

Among the managers included local banks and foreign banks with local partners such as J.P. Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas, UBS, Credit Suisse, United Bank for Africa and many others.

Nigeria derives 95 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from oil. It is the largest oil producer in Africa that holds sixth position among the world's oil producing nations.

It was also revealed by the President of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorers, Austin Avuru, that Nigeria had earned US$ 400 billion as economic rent from the 27 billion of barrels of oil produced in the last 50 years.

"Our current oil reserve estimates stand at about 35 billion barrels. Average annual reserves addition in the last ten years is about 800 million barrels while average annual withdrawal rate over the same period is about 840 million barrels," he said.

Nigeria has the potential to discover additional 40 billion barrels of oil and 120tct of gas. Within the period, he said, out of the 183 tcf of gas discovered in the country, Nigeria has produced only 13 tcf.

Mr Avuru however also grilled Nigeria for its inability to effectively manage its oil vast wealth in the last 50 years.

"We have laboured to share rather than create, and even in sharing we have been found wanting. The parlous state of our economy today only summarises the fact that we have, so far squandered our riches", he said, adding that in the future, wealth generated from oil should be managed to better the lives of generations of Nigerians.

He asked Nigeria to borrow a cue from Europe's main oil producer Norway by setting up a national petroleum fund to better manage its oil and gas earnings.

An official from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Alhaji Jafaru Paki, also used the conference to explain the reasons why Nigeria has not been able to boost its manpower to the highest level several years after the discovery of oil. He said Nigeria is part of the global village and must therefore innovate in order to actualise its local content drive.

Nigeria is also reeling with the problem of energy deficiency, which according to recent statements made by President Obasanjo in Abuja, was caused by the absence of investment in the sector for over ten years. He said his government had already begun to meet the energy requirements of the country by 2015.

"You cannot say you are developing without taking energy, education, basic infrastructure seriously," President Obasanjo said, adding that Nigeria was determined to be one of the 20th largest economies in the world by the year 2020.

He said the success of South Korea and Japan were caused by their first things first and by dint of hard-work. That, President Obasanjo held, should be an example to Nigerians to assure the country would be among the world's leading economies within few decades. Neither South Korea nor Japan is an oil producing country.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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