A former President of the Ijaw Youth Council and the leader of the Niger Delta People Salvation Front, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has accused security agencies for thier role in the stealing of crude oil from Nigeria.
He alleged that security agencies that should guard the country’s oil resources and territorial waters are collaborators in the stealing of crude oil.
Dokubo said these while reacting to question on crude oil theft in the oil rich Niger-Delta region.
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The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, Mele Kyari and the Minister of State Petroleum, Timipre Sylva had alerted that over 700,000 barrels of Nigerian oil were stolen on daily basis.
Around 90 per cent of foreign exchange from exports in Nigeria comes form crude oil sales, which has been frustrated by oil thieves.
The ripple effect is huge pressure on foreign exchange reserves and dollar shortage which has led to naira decline.
Nigeria also depends on crude oil proceeds to fund a large chunk of the budget.
Recently, the NNPC contracted Tantita Security Services by Tompolo for pipeline surveillance.
Asari-Dokubo said, “A lot of people justify the activities of these criminals on the plight of the people of Niger Delta. Now they need to justify that resources belong to us which is true and that we have the right to have access to these resources which is also true.
“But a group of people, an infinitesimal percentage of the people with people from outside the Niger-Delta go into alliance, become business partners and they steal these resources and in stealing these resources, they inflict environmental genocide on the people. They inflict economic genocide on the people because the mainstay of the economy of the Ijaw people is fishing.
“The discharged of their illegal activities doesn’t meet international standard of the oil industry and this affects the marine life, killing everything. Our people can no longer fish. These people are not upto one percent of our people.
“These people from the region are funded in most cases by outsiders. The people who bring these big tankers are not Niger-Deltans. If they are Niger-Deltans they will be so few. Maybe those who have access to the government and government money, because to get a tanker, from here to Togo or Benin Republic that is where most of the stolen oil is sold and the government knows about these things, you need close to $1m or $2m to get a tanker and steal the oil.”
He explained further, “They fetch directly from the well head. This is where the mega money is. They will now take it to the mother vessel which will be like one million barrels, so they now load.
“Where is the security? Where is the Navy? Where is the Customs? Where is NIMASA? These are questions people should be able to ask.
“This doesn’t concern NNPC now because we always play this blame game. This one doesn’t concern the one that takes place at the discharging points at the terminals. At the discharging points, there are so many agencies military intelligence is their.
“We are talking of the one outside the official stealing of these resources. Now these vessels 2,000 to 3,000 tons. Say they have three shuttles vessels. They go from these manifolds or well heads and discharges outside Nigerian territorial waters in the night.
“They start maybe around 8am and by 2pm they have finished loading they go outside the territorial waters and discharge. Now calculate, if it is a one million barrel or 50000 barrel tanker, calculate how many days, how many weeks and how many months it will take to fill a super tanker like that. “
“So, in all these periods, are we pretending that the security is not there? Are we pretending that the Navy is not there, NIMASA is not there? “
He alleged that security agencies are part of the crime adding ” We should not be doing hide and seek as if this is rocket science. Or they don’t know what they are doing? They do.”
According to Dokubo, resistance among insiders who were frustrating the fight against crude oil theft had made Kyari to raise the alarm on the threat to his life.
Recently, the efforts of the NNPC have yielded results as government officials have said crude oil production has improved .
The NNPC intercepted a vessel which discharges stolen crude oil from Nigeria to Ghana.
In October, the company discovered several illegal pipelines used in stealing Nigerian crude
In November, the NNPC in pattnership with Tantita discovered another illegal connection made on the 48″ Forcados Export line where crude oil to the NNPC/Chevron OML 49 West Isan Platform was discovered to have been diverted.