The Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla has said the Navy plans to establish a Naval Base and Dockyard in Ogun state to protect critical investments.

Speaking when he received the Governor of Ogun State Dapo Abiodun on a courtesy visit at Naval Headquarters on Friday, he said Ogun being an industrial hub and strategic State required the presence of the Nigerian Navy to secure investments.
The CNS assured that the Nigerian Navy will do what is necessary to ensure to the Base comes alive in the next few days and urged the Governor to provide the Service with the Certificate of Occupancy in order for the team to return to site and commence preparations.

He said, “Ogun State is strategic in the nation and it is strategic with us in our activities which cannot be effectively done without the collaboration of key stakeholders like the state.

“We listen to the proposal the governor has towards developing the state all geared towards promoting economic activities. He proposed molecular LNG and molecular blue seaport and also the development of the ‘Tongaji’ Island’.

“These are investments that will attract a number of US dollars of up to N10bn into Nigerian economy. These investments can’t be without being provided security.

“Our duty is make sure we fulfil this aspect which is provision of security. We’ll move without waiting to establish these facilities, we make steps towards identifying suitable locations for this Naval Base. The committee has done a good job choosing the location which is close to these strategic investments that are coming into Ogun State.

“I’m glad that you have already allocated 100 hectares of land. I want to assure the governor that we’ll do what is necessary as speedily as possible to make sure that this objective is actualised”

Earlier, Governor Abiodun wnho presented documents allocating 100 hectares of land to the Navy for the establishment of a Naval Base noted that he was at the Naval Headquarters to deepen collaboration between the Nigerian Navy and the Ogun State government.

While presenting the land documents, he said Ogun state has attained frontier status and was expecting the commencement of oil exploration.
“In no distant time ,Ogun will be declared an oil producing State hence, we need a Naval Base and Dockyard to protect facilities”

“Only about three or four months ago, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited came and declared that Ogun State had now qualified for the frontier status.

“They declared Ogun as one of the states that they will begin to explore oil in the frontier-based status. And that is a status that is declared in areas where they believe that there is petroleum resources available from all locations.

“This is justified to them because we obtained studies that are probably about 60 years old from Shell, showing that Shell had drilled some wells around the other side of Tongaji Island about 60 years ago, but as soon as they found oil in Delta, they abandoned those wells and never came back.

“So they declared us and gave us a frontier status. Exploration of oil means that we have one of the most abundant deposits of bitumen as well in Ogun State. And we are convinced that in no distant future, Ogun State will be declared an oil producing state.

“We have submitted this, and this was one of the reasons why I began to encourage discussions between myself and the Nigerian Navy team. I’m glad that the proactive CNS, who of course inherited these discussions, embraced these discussions fully.

“So a team was sent out to come and take a look at the sites that would be suitable to have a naval base and a naval dockyard.

“Another reason why we thought this was important besides the frontier business status is the Natural Gas Project, the LNG project, which had been on the drawing board for several years.

“And because we were also forethinking and seeing what happened in view of the Russian-Ukrainian war, where the whole world now began to have a shortage of the supply of natural gas, we knew that in no distant future, this project would move back on stream.

“And we are aware that one of the conditions for such a huge project that would cost tens of billions of dollars would be to have a naval presence because of the size of that presence.”