The presidential candidate of the Accord Party, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has unveiled a plan to significantly increase Nigeria’s crude oil production to at least four million barrels per day within 24 months if elected president in 2027.
Hashim disclosed the proposal while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today, where he presented key elements of his Energy First Presidential Agenda.
According to him, the strategy would focus primarily on restoring production from thousands of oil wells that have already been drilled but are currently inactive.
The Accord presidential candidate said about 3,000 such wells could be targeted under the proposed programme, arguing that reviving existing oil assets would provide a faster route to increasing government revenue than committing huge public funds to projects with limited short-term returns.
“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,” Hashim said.
He maintained that Nigeria’s problem was not a shortage of petroleum resources but the inability to fully utilise assets that are already available.
Hashim said his administration would conduct a detailed assessment of every inactive but potentially productive well to establish the reasons for its shutdown and determine the appropriate technical intervention required to restore output.
Possible measures, he explained, would include well repairs and workovers, well interventions, artificial lift systems, rehabilitation of gathering facilities, pipeline repairs and improvements to crude evacuation infrastructure.
He argued that restoring production from existing assets should take precedence over certain major infrastructure projects, citing the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway as an example of an investment that may take many years before generating direct revenue for the government.
Hashim said increasing oil production would provide a more immediate opportunity to boost government earnings and strengthen the economy.
He further proposed the creation of a National Production Recovery Dashboard to monitor investments, interventions and the additional barrels generated from each recovered oil asset.
The dashboard, according to him, would promote accountability and enable the government to track progress towards the four-million-barrel-per-day production target.
Hashim stressed that unlocking the capacity of Nigeria’s existing petroleum infrastructure would be a major priority of an Accord administration if he wins the 2027 presidential election.
He said the country must focus on maximising the value of assets already in place rather than continually looking underground for new discoveries while existing productive capacity remains idle.
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