Rosemary Onuoha
“The on-going efforts of the Federal Government to rehabilitate former militants in the Niger Delta are commendable and all hands must be on deck to ensure that the efforts of the government in this regard are not in vain”.
Managing Director of Leadway Assurance Company Limited, Mr. Oye Hassan-Odukale, who made the assertion, noted that the previous unrest in the Niger Delta had a negative impact on the insurance industry in terms of oil and gas risk underwriting.
Hassan-Odukale who stated this in Lagos, noted that the attacks on oil installations by militants in the Niger Delta region seriously hampered the full implementation of the Local Content Policy of the Federal Government.
Re-iterating that the unrest in the region was not beneficial to the insurance industry, Hassan-Odukale noted “Ultimately it affected everything we were doing because some of our clients could not operate the way they were operating. Of course insurance goes with business, if there is no business what do we insure.”
On unethical practices that are still present in the sector, Hassan-Odukale noted that in every business there are challenges and competition, because the market goes through a circle, adding “At some point the market will be soft, at some point it will be hard. But ultimately, people who have a contract have to abide by the contract. Until they stop living by the contract that is when the regulator can come in,” he maintained.
