Mkpoikana Udoma
Abuja — In a hard-hitting session at the Nigeria Oil & Gas, NOG Energy Week 2025, Dr. Daere Akobo, Group CEO of Pana Holdings, sharply criticized Nigeria’s oil and gas sector for poor data integrity, lack of innovation, and internal inefficiencies, warning that these failures are undermining the nation’s economic growth and frustrating the vision of President Bola Tinubu.
Speaking during a panel on “Technology as a Business Strategy,” Akobo declared that Nigeria cannot attain operational excellence without a robust, centralized platform to collect and manage oil sector data, a responsibility he said rests squarely with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, NUPRC.
He said, “The collection of data in the oil and gas industry is not saddled with only NCDMB. The law says it is the technical requirement of the NUPRC to maintain the petroleum industry databank. It’s one thing to have power, another thing to understand it. Power is the ability to change the status quo.”
He lamented that sensitive data from recent bid rounds were being stored in personal flash drives, describing it as a security breach and a national embarrassment.
Akobo warned that Nigeria’s failure to build institutional platforms was holding back key continental initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.
“You can’t drive a car on a railroad. We don’t have the platform. In the oil and gas industry, we should. I have already created a platform for agriculture. With a proper platform, we can cut drilling costs by 30%,” he said.
In a fiery rebuke of wage disparities and local undervaluation, Akobo accused the industry of sabotaging itself:
“I posted this online, you pay a Nigerian engineer N200 per day and when you bring in a Filipino, you pay him N2,000. We are eating up ourselves.”
He challenged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, embrace innovation: “Since inception, NNPCL has no patent. Saudi Aramco has over 350. When will we use our professors? Universities like FUTO have done a lot of research, but when will we start to commercialize it?”
In a mix of satire and strategic critique, Akobo took a jab at what he called Nigeria’s obsession with political gossip over productive innovation.
“China is known for disruptive innovation. What are we known for? Tinubu versus Shonekan. I used to teach in business school that hope is not a strategy. But last week, I changed my mind. Renewed Hope is a strategy, if only we stop frustrating the President.”
He urged Nigerians to practice “constructive gossip” by holding government officials accountable: “Send a message to every Minister: Do not frustrate the President. We say we love the President, then we go and mutilate his agenda. Stop it. All ministers must align with the Renewed Hope strategy.”
Akobo’s remarks struck a chord with attendees, highlighting a growing demand for technology-backed governance, actionable data infrastructure, and true commercialization of local knowledge in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
