Prof. Silva Opuala-Charles, the President of Garden City Premier Business School, has said that oil exploratory and production activities in the Niger Delta are a major threat to the multi-trillion dollar blue economy in Nigeria.
Prof. Opuala-Charles, who was the Special Guest of Honour at the 2025 Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Correspondents’ Chapel Week, Port Harcourt, described oil pollution as poison to the growth of the blue economy.
The 2025 Correspondents’ Week has ‘The Blue Economy: Starting Steps for Rivers State’ as its theme, and ‘Enhancing the Economic Welfare of Journalists in a Period of Economic Crisis.’
Prof Opuala-Charles lamented that the vast Niger Delta environment has been polluted to the extent that there were no more marine life in the place
He disclosed that the United Nations has said that about $12 billion was needed to clean up the Niger Delta, which Opuala-Charles said had taken in 13 million barrels of spilled crude oil since 1958.
He said the blue economy in Nigeria is worth over $24 trillion, pointing out that the blue economy comprises maritime, fisheries, aqua-culture and tourism, among others.
Opuala-Charles insisted that to take benefits, there must be deliberate investment in the blue economy.
The Special Guest of Honour also spoke of the need to revive the old city states of the Niger Delta like Bonny, Nembe, Buguma to anchor the revolution in the blue economy .
He praised the choice of Blue Economy as the theme of the Correspondents’ Week and assured that it was possible to transform it to the benefit of the national economy.
The Chairman of the occasion,Dr Chamberlain Peterside, represented by Atonye Wilcox, said there was more business in blue economy than the oil and gas industry, and suggested that the old Port Harcourt township should be developed and linked to the sea.
However Peterside stressed that the blue economy cannot be properly harnessed without taking care of the environment.
The keynote speaker, Mr Ubong Essien, Dean School of Eloquence and Founder Blue Economy Academy, described Nigeria as a “sea blind nation”, and regretted that despite the fact that it has over 853km of coastline, vast inland waterways, rich biodiversity, bustling port cities, the country looked more like a landlocked nation.
The Dean said it was surprising that despite economic shocks, occasioned by crashing oil prices and rising youth unemployment, Nigeria was not looking to the sea for redemption.
“The truth is Nigeria’s obsession with oil has blinded us to an even greater wealth, the blue economy,” Essien said.
He wondered why Rivers State has not used its vantage position as a coastal state to develop her blue economy.
The Chairman Organising Committee, Mr Ignatius Chukwu, urged journalists to turn their talents into products and sell them.
