Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed why he stopped attending Oil and Gas conferences abroad, describing the huge attendance of Nigerian population at international conferences as a waste and not beneficial to the sector.
According to Kachikwu, though, with his 25 years in Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco, he had attended many International Oil trade conferences, his last attendance of an Oil and Gas Conference was in 2017 in Texas, United States, where he noticed that members of the huge population in attendance didn’t make or attend presentations but used the opportunities for holidays and shoppings.
Dr Kachikwu, while speaking in Yenagoa at the 2019 Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair hosted by the Nigerian Development, Content and Monitoring Board (NDCMB), said though the decision generated controversy among foreign media, it has paid off with the two editions of Oil and Gas conferences in Nigeria.
According to Kachikwu, “In 2017, in Houston, Texas, I told the world press that it was going to be my last attendance at Oil and Gas conferences. It generated lots of noise and controversy. But in my 25 years in the industry, I spent lots of times going to oil conferences. I just figured that we had gotten to a point where we had lots of Nigerian population in attendance and most of our delegates never went to presentations. They spent good time on holidays and returned home.
“And when I attended in 2017, just after being made minister, it was my last. And I said there was the need to develop conferences for Nigeria and Africa. Now, we have had two editions and they were successful.”
The minister commended the management of the Nigerian Development, Content and Monitoring Board (NDCMB) led by the executive secretary, Simbi Wabote of the initiative to host the successful conference in the country.
Source: Leadership
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