Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Gbenga Olawepo‑Hashim, has unveiled a bold and ambitious plan to raise Nigeria's crude oil production to a minimum of four million barrels per day within 24 months of his administration, an increase of more than 160 per cent above the country's current production level of about 1.5 million barrels per day. Hashim made the declaration during an appearance on Channels Television's Politics Today programme over the weekend, where he outlined what he described as the production backbone of his "Energy First" Presidential Agenda.
At the centre of the plan, Hashim said, is an investment programme to bring approximately 3,000 currently non‑producing oil wells back into productive operation. "We have oil wells that have already been drilled, assets that have already been discovered and infrastructure that have already been built. Our first task is to put these assets back to work for Nigeria," he declared. The Accord candidate argued that Nigeria's fundamental problem is not a lack of petroleum resources but the failure to convert existing resources and productive assets into reliable energy supply. "The question is not how much oil Nigeria has underground. The question is why we are not producing the oil that our existing assets are capable of producing," he added.
The proposed programme would identify why each viable inactive well is not producing and deploy the necessary capital and technical interventions required to restore production, including well workovers, artificial lift systems, pipeline rehabilitation, and improved evacuation arrangements. Hashim said an Accord administration would establish a National Production Recovery Dashboard to track every intervention, investment and additional barrel generated, while operators would be required to provide clear production timelines and government agencies would be expected to remove bureaucratic obstacles standing between investment and actual production.
Hashim maintained that the government should prioritise the recovery of existing productive assets over committing scarce public resources to projects such as the Lagos‑Calabar Coastal Highway, which he argued may not generate revenue for the government in the next 20 years. His four‑million‑barrel production target is also central to his earlier petrol‑pricing proposal, which envisions an initial petrol price of ₦605 per litre, with a long‑term objective of bringing the price down to between ₦200 and ₦300 per litre. He said the underlying philosophy is straightforward: reduce the cost of producing energy and the cost of energy will ultimately fall. "You make energy cheap by making the cost of producing energy cheap," he stressed.
Hashim stressed that his four‑million‑barrel target is not designed merely to increase crude exports but to enable Nigeria to produce more crude and refine more of it domestically, ultimately creating an energy economy capable of supplying the country's petrol, diesel, aviation fuel and other petroleum products while exporting surplus refined products. His proposal comes against the backdrop of Nigeria's current crude production of about 1.5 million barrels per day, meaning that moving to four million barrels daily would represent an increase of almost 2.5 million barrels per day, or more than 160 per cent above current production. Hashim expressed confidence in Nigeria's capacity to regain the economic strength it recorded in previous decades, recalling the country's industrial and economic achievements in the 1970s and early 1980s. "Nigeria has not always been a country run by idiots and thieves. Nigeria has been a country that was great," he said, adding, "I'm one incurable optimist about the greatness of this country."
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