Oil Bunkering Allegations Against Naval Chief ‘Malicious’ — Group

The leadership of Enugu North Professionals for Good Governance, Tuesday, called for a probe into what it called ‘malicious publications against the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla’.

Enugu North Senatorial Zone of Enugu State is where Ogalla hails from.

The group’s President, Mr Emmanuel Ikechukwu-Jonathan, said the call became necessary because “such it damages the image of Nigeria globally.”

The group, which advocates good governance in all sectors of the country, said that the sponsors of the publications should be fished out and interrogated to “put records straigh.”

He said, “The actions of those sponsoring these malicious publications have shown that they are obviously the real oil thieves causing all the havocs we experience around Nigeria’s oil facilities. They are not comfortable with the resilience of the naval chief in crushing the thieving cartel, and they have resorted to using the media to pull the Naval boss down through unfounded allegations.”

The group appealed to President Bola Tinubu to use his good offices to cause investigations into the matter “with a view to bringing the perpetrators to book.”

According to him, “What they are systematically doing is to defame and push the Chief of the Naval Staff out of office. The allegations in their campaign of calumny have no facts, otherwise they would have since presented them.”

The body commended the Naval Headquarters for proactively issuing a disclaimer, clearing CNS Ogalla of all allegations levelled against him in the malicious publication:.

Recall that Ogalla was accused of involvement in facilitating unauthorised bunkering of crude oil and engaging in multimillion-naira contract-splitting fraud. He was also accused of releasing several oil tankers previously seized for transporting stolen crude oil and receiving substantial kickbacks, which the navy headquarters has denied.

Following these allegations, the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.