CRIME & CORRUPTION: Mallam Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has said the federal government would soon reveal the identities of top personalities behind oil theft in the country.
Basic Facts
- Nigeria in the recent time under President Muhammadu Buhari has been unable to meet up with its OPEC allotted quota in the international crude market supply.
- The theft of crude by some powerful individuals with strong connection to government and people in power have been blamed for this.
- The presidency now says it will name those behind this theft as a way of curtailing the corruption in the oil & gas sector.
- The same Buhari government also ones promised to name those behind terrorism finance in the country, but up until date never lived up that promise.
What We Know
Nigeria`s almost fully oil & gas dependent economy is massively in debt and cash strap mostly owing to corruption in every sector of the economy, and this represent failure to the government of president Muhammadu Buhari who campaigned to routed out corruption.
The revenue from the oil and gas sector has dwindled seriously mostly because of the drop in the amount of crude the country has been able to sell in the international market.
This reduction has largely been because of theft of crude running into billions of United States Dollars, and very powerful cabals have been responsible for this ugly situation in the oil & gas sector.
In what seems like a big, the senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity speaking for the presidency has once again said his administration will name those who are behind this oil theft in the country, Clariform Newsdesk has learnt.
According to Mallam Garba Shehu, this is part of efforts to rid the country’s economy from sabotage by a greedy few. He noted that security operatives had raided locations where illegal oil bunkering thrive and will continue to do so in a bid to totally get rid of oil bunkering.
The presidential spokesman while speaking on an online TV program hinted that there might be cases of some law enforcement agents engaging in the illegal act, but said that new measures were being put to place to checkmate it.
Notable Quote
While speaking on the program, he said: “Oil theft is being tackled. The big problem we have in this country is that we ought to see more commitment from communities in assisting law enforcement agents. In some cases, where some actors in the law enforcement are complicit, it becomes bad.”
He added that it was embarrassing for Nigeria not to meet up with the quota given to it by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
He continued: “We used to fight the OPEC for more quotas; now, they have given us and we are not able to meet up. This is embarrassing. Security agencies are fully involved in stopping this act.
“I am hopeful that in the next few days, the office of the National Security Adviser will be presenting to the country, big men who are promoters of this kind of business as they are being caught and illegal refineries are being bombed out.”
Speaking further, said: “The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is also installing a monitoring capacity to detect or advise immediately when sabotage of oil pipelines happens.”
Flashback
Nigerian economy has for long suffered from the ballooning effect of crude oil theft, which are undoubtedly perpetuated by powerful people within the corridors of power or their cronies.
Crude oil theft in Nigeria is an organized crime and this has been confirmed even by highly placed operators in the industry, who have also clearly differentiated heinous economic crime from the disagreements between oil companies and their host community.
In July, the Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria/Mid Africa Business Unit, Richard Kennedy made this relatively in a panel session organized during Nigerian Oil & Gas (NOG) Conference held in Abuja.
While responding to a question about the new Petroleum Industry Act in relation to host community issues, Mr. Kennedy went further to address the hydra headedness of crude theft.
Notable Quotes
The Chevron boss said: “From my experience, the issue with crude oil theft should not be confused with host community issues. It is much much much bigger than that. It is completely different from host community issues. Quite frankly it is organized crime.”
“The volume of crude that is being stolen is well beyond comprehension. You can see some of the figures in the press, maybe it’s about 100,000 barrels per day at $100 per barrel and that’s $10 million per day that is being stolen. And NNPC owns 60% while taxes of 85% are paid so it’s a huge loss for the country.”
In the same manner and in the same forum, Wale Tinubu, the Group CEO of Oanda, will towing the line of Mr Kennedy said:
“There has been a 43% reduction in our production from March 2020 to May 2022. We lose almost 20% of our daily crude production to oil thieves and pipeline vandals and 20,000 barrels a day of oil is lost to oil theft. Basically some three million barrels on average yearly is lost to oil theft and pipeline vandalism.”
News Analysis
Clariform recalls with nostalgia that the present government of President Muhammadu Buhari have not lived up to expectation in the area of fighting corruption in the country.
It is with the above unfortunate realization that many people in the country will take this new statement from the presidency about naming those behind crude oil theft in the country with a pinch of salt.
We would recall that the names of more than 400 individuals were reportedly provided by some Arab countries as those behind the sponsoring of terrorism in Nigeria sometime in the past.
In the most disappointing outcome, these names were provided to President Buhari`s administration, but the government never made the names public or confirm the prosecution of any of the individuals.
This is not withstanding unending promise by the presidency through the nation`s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami to name and prosecute this criminals mostly likely in the highest places in the country.
Nevertheless, we have noted this new pledge from the presidency and will continue to monitor the development as part of we are watching at the Clariform Newsdesk. Any development on the issue will be brought to the attention of our readers.
