The Nigerian former President and Architect pioneer of Nigerian Local Content His Excellency President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has disclosed the ultimate reason behind his expedient signing of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry Content bill into law (NOGIC Act), which led to the establishment of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

President Jonathan made this revelation at the Nigeria Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair NOGOF 2025) held at the NCDMB Oxbro Lake Tower in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, with the theme: Driving Investment and Production Growth: Shaping a Sustainable Future for Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry Through Indigenous Capacity Development.

Speaking at the award Gala Night event, just after being honoured with the Most Prestigious award of the Nigerian Content Lifetime Achievement Award, former President Jonathan admitted that the signing of the NOGIC Act by his administration in 2010 was hurriedly done owing to the paramount importance of the bill to oil producing Communities then and also to underscore his age long aspiration based on his experiences he encountered during a visit to Chinese oil museum as a deputy Governor of Bayelsa State.

His Excellency took brief moment in his speech to give the chronological reflection of the nation’s petroleum laws dated back its pre-independence era, ranging from the Mineral Oil Ordinance of 1886, the Mineral Oil Ordinance  Law of 1914 and Petroleum Act of 1969 which was an  Act enacted after discovering oil in commercial quantity in 1956 in Oloibri, Bayelsa State. According to President Goodluck, preceding the above petroleum laws are the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Act signed in 2010, and the Petroleum Industrial Act of 2021, an Act which he described as a robust law of the nation and was originated in his administration.

So why the speed of signing the bill into law

“I signed that law in April, as at that time I was an acting President, and of course, you know the story of becoming an acting president. So why is the speed of signing the bill into law? The bill was a private member bill and not an executive bill, I will seize this opportunity to commend Senator Lee Maeba, an astute Senator from Rivers State, and other members of the National Assembly who came up with the bill.

“So the Minister of Petroleum then informed me that there was a bill going on in the National Assembly, and I was quite pleased and just waited patiently for it.  Because of the experience I had in 2002 when I was deputy governor of Bayelsa state, I led a trade delegation to China and because we are from the Niger Delta area we decided to visit some oil cities in China. We visited Daquing, which is a city the Chinese call Oil Capital. They took us through their Library and museum, where we learnt stories of the beginning of their petroleum mining activities up to 2002,” President Jonathan narrated.

Comparing the rate of technological development in the Chinese oil and gas sector to Nigerian oil and gas sector with respective to the fact that the two nations oil discoveries timelines were close as oil discovery in Nigeria was made in 1956 and that of China was discovered in 1958, President Jonathan disclosed that the technological development gap is enormously wide as Chinese have taken over major chunk of the oil and gas jobs while Nigerian counterparts are lagging.

“One thing that struck me was that the western countries that discovered oil in commercial quantity in Oloibri in 1956 were the same that discovered oil in commercial quantity in China in 1958, two years after Nigeria.  In 2000, most of the needs of the oil industry in China were manufactured locally, but in Nigeria, if any company needed a valve, they would go to their own country.

“So, as Deputy Governor, I took up that matter with President Obasanjo that we should not continue this way with the oil industry, we have to use what we have to get what we want. If we make the oil industry invest in technological development in our country, the technology can be diverted to Agricultural and other related areas …..So when I became an acting President, in 2010, and when the National Assembly teamed up with the NOGIC bill, I hurriedly signed it and quickly set up the Monitoring Board, “ the former President asserted.

On his Nigerian Content Lifetime Achievement Award, the former Nigerian President vividly observed that the history of the NOGIC Act cannot be written without the indelible contributions of Senator Lee Maebe. This is because the bill is a National Assembly member’s bill, of which Senator Lee Maebe is the originator, and not an executive bill. On this premise, President Jonathan recommended that Senator Maebe should have been honored for his foresight in originating a wonderful initiative.

“But I mention someone like Senator Lee Maeba, originator of that bill, and his group, who are also supposed to be recognized.  Because they have done well; and that was the time the National Assembly was the National Assembly, and looking at the local content bill,  of course, you will know that in 2000 Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) bill 2 was vetoed by the National Assembly. They vetoed President Obasanjo on that bill.

“Normally, in other countries, the President vetoes bills, but in Nigeria, so much in our process of making laws, it is the National Assembly that vetoes bills. If the President doesn’t like any bill and he doesn’t sign within 30 days, the National Assembly will meet, and if it gets two-thirds by counting and not by voice votes, to support the bill, it will automatically become a law. And that is how the NDDC 2 law came about, so we have a  vibrant National Assembly then. So I will use this great opportunity to comment on Senator Lee Maeba and his team,” President Goodluck suggested.

In his final note, President Jonathan commends the NCDMB Executive Secretary, Engr. Omatsola Felix Ogbe and his team for keeping the flag flying and keeping the vision of this law. From what has been achieved thus far, in the next few years, the oil and gas industry must have reached a greater height than it has presently.