Since oil and gas remain Nigeria’s economic mainstay, it is incumbent for the multinationals to raise funds for the establishment of a security fund to guarantee a watertight assets security, which keeps crude oil thieves at bay for increased production. Lee Engineering Group and Allied Companies Chairman, Dr. Leemon Ikpea made this call in an interview with JOHN OFIKHENUA in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The Assa North Ohaji Project was suspended due to insecurity. Thus, how do you hope to accomplish your implementation of projects in the face of security menace?
You to talk about Assa North Ohaji (ANOH) project, I am the one handling it. I lost seven staff. Militants killed seven of my staff last year. As I am talking to you now, we suspended work there since August 16. The attack happened on the 16 and from 16 to date all my equipment are rotting away there. So you can imagine what I have lost. It is in billions. So many big equipment are there like cranes.
It is just like you buying cars, you are not using them, your know they are depreciating.
So I’m happy you mentioned that we are losing. That is why we said that the multinationals collaborate with the government and put the fund in a certain pool where they can use to help the security especially now that it is oil and gas sector that the money comes from, so that we can be producing our OPEC quota.
You see the problem of dollars now, if you don’t sell. If you don’t more how do you get dollars? You have to sell more for that dollar to come. You have to put the security in place.
They discovered this thing so nobody knew that some thing was going on. Thus, the credit goes to NNPC management for their discoveries and the efforts are yielding positive results. Gradually all these people doing these things will be brought to book.
What solutions are you recommending for addressing the insecurity in the oil and gas sector?
The major issues are security challenges. For example, this house is my house. If you look at the road from there to here, I tarred it and I am taking care of water. I am taking care of many things and the same thing in my house in Lagos, my factory in Warri, especially this diesel consumption. I will say the tax I pay every year, if I mention it, you will be shocked. But what are we getting back? We have a lot of security; the mopol, the conventional police.
The security situation calls forattention. But you will also know that security issue is a big issue, it is not what we leave for government alone. So it is also to encourage big organisations to support the government to improve on security. If possible, we can have a security fund that can be in the pool in a certain bank and if there is any flashy area, they can go to that fund. If the tax multinational and other bigger companies that their balance sheet every year, whatever profit they achieve that year, they pay it to the fund, that will help. From that fund too, they can even do some roads.
So security situation is not what to be left for the government alone. It should be our collective effort, in terms of funding and information because information too is important. If proper information is not passed, what will the government do? That is for security.
In the oil and gas sector you can see what the government is doing now that the oil production is improving because government is paying attention to security. So if everybody in the oil and gas sector now says let us improve funding in that sector and tackle the insecurity, production will go up. So,we should pay attention to security because it is in a peaceful environment that investment can thrive.
Why are you so concerned about the security matter and how soon do you think we should expect respite in the industry?
How will the money come? How will production get to the desired level and meet our export quota ? So by the time you pump more they will steal it. Is that what you want? So, it is the insecurity matter we need to tackle immediately. The efforts they are putting now that the military and everybody is supporting NNPCL to fight this evil, I am very sure if they are tackled, with the new NNPCL we have in place, respite may come in the next two or three months.
Read Also; Who wants Mele Kyari dead?
Can you recall how the advocacy for the Nigerian content started in the oil and gas industry?
I discovered that the multinationals are very good technically, but their feelings about us is that they are Africans, let us take control of their space, let us dominate them so that their young ones cannot grow. So we were just subcontractors and they took us as supporters to them.
So the advocacy for local content started from my office in Warri. Myself and one Engineer Emookha, the chairman of KAKASA, started this advocacy that let Nigerians be also participating. They gave everything to them because they gave everything to French Company, they gave everything to German company. They will now give us what they want : peanuts. Remember what I said earlier that we were the people doing the work. So why can’t I bring my own equipment? If you go to my yard today, if you tell them it is a Nigerian company, they won’t believe. But it is local content. We fought and fought until we took it to the House. One of our friends, the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Chibudom Nwuche was with us. So we all passed the road to ensure local content come to stay. We give thanks to God first and we give thanks to the Nigerian government. We want to tell you today that local content law is beneficial because Nigerians are building capacity on daily basis.
By the grace of God, it will be commissioned by the President next year. It is going to save foreign exchange for the country. Now you know the difficulties in getting foreign exchange. Angola company will come to buy because we are having it here. We are building a jetty close to our factory to export. The Minister of Petroleum has come to inspect it. The Minister of Trade and Industry has come here inspect it. The former President when he came he was shocked becuase they supervised us from time to time and they were all amazed.
In what ways have your business impacted positively on Nigerians?
The Federal Government deemed it fit to give me award on 11th of October 11 . The first time I met the President was in 2018 during the day late King of Warri Otuware, who happened to be my classmate. I visited him. That of 2018, the first word, I heard from was thank you Dr. Leemond for what you are doing for Nigeria. It was in front of the king and other people present so I was just wondering. It is because we take of the less privileged. We take care of the weak. We take care of the old. We take care of the sick. We have been doing that for more than 20 years. But I established a foundation in 2012. Most senior people: old ones, young ones were all there. It was a very big event. And since we established the foundation, I can tell you as at today, my foundation has trained 40 doctors working in different fields and in different countries. And we have over 189 graduates in Civil Engineering, Mechanical, and different disciplines.
How did you start the journey to today’s 31 years of growth and expansion into different businesses ?
Mr. Franco Corona of ABB said Leemon, we are happy you were with us. We are happy you have been able to train some of the staff. The man said we are very proud of you that you worked in this company and you left your name here. He prayed for me and said he had instructions from the management that I should be their contractor: priority contractor at the same time they still want me to be managing the staff and also be handling their immigration matters. They wanted me to do that at my own time. Just put your represenatives in the system to manage and report to you. They organised everything for me with an office.
I established Lee Engineering in 1991. It was established on November 11, 1991 after my exit from ABB in July 1990 . Today is the 10th November, tomorrow it will be 31 years. But first of all, I established a company called Amonlee that was an enterprise, which I transformed to Lee Engineering in 1991.
When Snamptojetiff left, they gave me some cash and I then had a volswageen. But when Snamptojetiff handed me over to ABB, they gave me a good package. I was using 504 and they now gave me a 40- feet container. I divided the 40 feet container into two and we were selling handgloves, safety things and helmets in the first segment of the container. I used the other part as my office. I started my business with a 40-feet container.