Since the unearthing of oil in Nigeria, the oil and gas industry has remained a major spearhead in furthering the nation’s economic growth and development. However, there was a need to revitalize the industry’s policies to fill up a void of competency when it was found out that its contribution to economic growth was minimal due to heavy reliance on expatriates and importation. An unsustainable practice that left us heavily dependent as a country. An attempt to resolve the matter, led to the coining of the Nigerian local content in the petroleum industry by engaging indigenous participation, services and capabilities that would consequently help to sustain national economic growth and development. In 2010, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) was established to enforce, coordinate and implement the provisions of the NOGICD Act set up to enhance the level of participation of Nigerians and Nigerian companies in the country’s oil and gas industry.
The Nigerian Oil and Gas Development Act clearly defined Nigerian Content as “the quantum of composite value added to or created in the Nigerian economy by a systematic development of capacity and capabilities through deliberate utilisation of Nigerian human, material resources and services in the Nigerian oil and gas industry”. Since then, efforts have been geared towards constantly developing strategies to protect the economy and promote local content as the NCDMB drives increased local content utilisation in the industry. However, it is evident that the potential of the Nigerian content policy is yet to reach its full peak.
The industry is in a time of ground-breaking transformation, largely driven by technological advancements and the rise of large economies of scale. We are now in the stages of industrial growth that breeds artificial intelligence and smart technologies. Given the growth of technology, the need for various technical skills and knowledge is likely to continue emerging and evolving into the probable future. Technical skills are an array of expertise and understanding used to perform practical tasks in areas of the technical workforce. They are skills utilized by people to follow the procedures of technical analysis and the technology required to master their envisioned uses in a variety of circumstances. The procurement of advanced technical skills requires specialized training and learning, habitually with hands-on erudition. Technical skill requirements are listed for a bulk of fields, with the highest concentrations in areas involving scientific, technological, engineering and computational aptitudes.
Nigeria, as a developing country with an expansive population requires competent services that promotes the Nigerian local content in order to meet the necessary quota for development and promote productivity. There is a need for the development of competent and seasoned technical skilled manpower to influence the Nigerian local content positively and an interrelation between technical skilled manpower and the local content is that they work ideally as a value adding tool which is prerogative to nation’s development. This is seen, as local content is utilized to extract and exploit indigenous technical skills and expertise to be functional in the petroleum industry and influence other fields.
The Nigerian local content is designed to directly impact on the local workforce by increasing its engagement and involvement in industrial activities. Therefore, it is evident that efforts to develop technical skilled manpower would redefine the local workforce to in turn, help the Nigerian local content in reaching its optimum levels. The entire scope of the Nigerian local content, the act and its policies is to make sure that projects, operations and manufacturing in the industry are carried out in-country without compromising standards as there would be unsavoury effects of using poorly skilled workmen. This is the catch, as technical skilled man power is greatly required with elimination of factors that hinder its growth and development if local content is to be properly harnessed. Facts are that, for the proper enactment of the Nigerian local content, conscious efforts towards the development of technical skilled manpower has to be made and such efforts need to be imbibed from basic to higher levels with adequate focus on practicality and hands on learning.
Initiatives that could be geared towards the development of technical skilled manpower should thereby encompass the encouragement of improved remuneration and incentives to attract people into the line of work, additional efforts into the acquisition of funding for high standard and high tech training workshops, industrial training of students of petroleum, construction and other engineering related courses looking to join the work force. As well as, incessant training of personnel in the industry to constantly update and re skill with new methods and proficiencies as technology evolves. The value adding feature of the Nigerian local content greatly improves through the development of technical skilled manpower and has a positively wholesome effect on the entire country, serving the greater good.