Engr. Charles Osezua will present his book, The Rise of Gas: From Gaslink to the Decade of Gas on Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).
The book which has been described as “a magisterial account of Nigeria’s entry into the comity of oil and gas producing nations” provides insights and perspectives from one of Nigeria’s pre-eminent gas engineers who had a distinguished and stellar career at NNPC before setting up Gaslink which provided gas as alternative fuel stock to industrial clusters in Lagos beginning from Agidingbi.
His biographical account takes us from the initial prospecting of oil and gas in the Dahomey Basin all the way to Akata close to Eket where oil and gas was first discovered in 1953 and not Oloibiri in 1956 as has become the entrenched lore.
Engineer Osezua shares in his book the country’s chequered history of gas exploration, waste and utilization from the perspective of a ring-side participant and in so doing gives us a seminal book to enrich the scant literature which currently exists about the emergence and development of the Nigerian gas industry whether from a practitioner or policy maker’s point of view.
His recollections, reminiscences and insights cast a harsh searchlight on the years Nigeria spent burning money in the guise of gas flaring, outlines decades of ill-conceived government policies as well as policy summersaults while commending well-meaning efforts by leaders like President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Governor of Lagos, his cabinet members like Rauf Aregbesola and Muiz Banire as well as Muhammadu Buhari who declared the Decade of Gas.
The book and public presentation is expected to provide an avenue for deepening the ongoing conversations about energy transition and de-carbonisation in Nigeria as outlined in President Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda.
