OpeOluwani Akintayo
09 February 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Former Group Managing Director of NNPC and Chairman of Brass LNG Nigeria Limited, Dr. Jackson Gaius Obaseki and past President of the African Refiners Association and currently the Managing Consultant of PEJAD Nigeria Limited, Engr. Anthony Ogbuigwe, FNSE, have been billed as a guest speaker and the Chairman respectively at this year’s 15th Annual Aret Adams Memorial lecture series.
Slated for 1st March, 2018 at the Muson Centre (Agip Hall) 8/9, Marina, Onikan, Lagos, the Programs Coordinator of Aret Adams Foundation, Mr. Akin Jokojeje, said this year’s lecture which is the 15th in the series, has a theme, tagged “Refineries in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities”.
As expected, major players and stakeholders in the Oil and Gas industry, financial institutions as well as captains of industries are expected at the event.
He said that the Foundation was established in honour of the late Chief Godwin Aret Adams, the first Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (1988 to 1990), who later became the Special Adviser on Petroleum Resources to former Head of State, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar (rtd) in1998, adding that Aret Adams made outstanding contributions toward the growth of Nigeria’s Oil & Gas industry and the nation’s economy in general.
The Foundation, Mr. Jokojeje said is aimed at promoting and building educational capacity and policy formulations. He disclosed that the National Energy policy delivered to the Federal government in April 1980 was formulated by the late Aret Adams and that it was him that re-energized negotiations that led to the successful execution of shareholders agreements for the execution of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) project in 1989 and many others.
He went further to reveal that the Foundation has institutionalized the Aret Adams Professorial Chairs at the University of Port Harcourt in collaboration with Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
In addition, the Late Chief Aret Adams was a Geologist per excellence during his lifetime and an alumnus of the University of Ibadan.
This has propelled the Foundation to be giving scholarship awards to the best selected Post Graduate students in Geology of the University of Ibadan on yearly basis to assist them in the pursuit of their M.sc degree programmes.
Also giving an insight into the forthcoming annual lecture, the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Foundation, Mr. Egbert Imomoh, CON noted that “Chief Aret Adams left behind a legacy of professionalism and humanitarianism as epitomised in many lives he touched, irrespective of tribe or religion affiliations while he was alive. It was those virtues of his that motivated few colleagues and associates to establish the Foundation to propagate and sustain the life-long dreams of the late Godwin Aret Adams”.
The Board Of Trustee Chairman also revealed that the topic for this year’s lecture is so germane, because it would seek to explore all possible measures that could be employed by the government and all other stakeholders in the Oil & Gas industry to put an end to perennial and recurrent fuel scarcity being experienced in the country, as a result of below performance of install capacities of refineries in Nigeria.
One of the major highlights of this year’s lecture would be the presentation of scholarship awards to another set of Post Graduate students in Geology of the University of Ibadan.
