Nigeria Army, Navy, Police Behind Oil Theft – Source

Crude oil theft and Bunkering becoming a norm in Niger/Delta part of the country has required the federal government urgent attention.

With the contraction of the Ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, more information is been revealed and progress is made on curbing Oil theft incriminating the Nigerian Navy, Army and Police.

Misleading intelligence

Before now, the security report was that some militants and other misguided miscreants, harboured by villagers in the different riverine communities in the oil-rich region, were the monsters breaking into the nation’s pipelines and haemorrhaging the country.

The intelligence report acknowledged that they were major oil thieves bankrolling the operations of the minor oil thieves; it was unspecific in their nomenclature.

Based on the disingenuous details, the government has pursued a one-track strategy of a crackdown on suspected operators of illegal oil refining camps in the creeks of the Niger Delta, destruction of the said camps, equipment, and apprehension of some operators. However, the real damage continued because the major culprits remained unruffled.

The military offensives by the Joint Task Force, JTF, in the Niger Delta on the kpofire business have degenerated more to the harassment and inconveniencing of riverine dwellers, and most of the time, people not involved in the criminal act turn victims of the onslaught.

Secreted reality

However, facts are emerging with the engagement of Tompolo by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL. Why has oil bunkering increased rather than decreased, in the last few months, which has made it impracticable for the nation to meet its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, daily production quota?

Army, Navy, Police, and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDSC, officers deployed to tackle oil bunkering in the Niger Delta sponsor their own illegal crude oil refining camps in the creeks. Only the Department of State Services, DSS, is not involved in the show of shame.

Sources informed that security officials involved in oil bunkering finance locals to carry out unlawful business in the creeks, provide security, and shield their camps from destruction by other security agents. Some top security officials in Abuja and Lagos, who are neck deep in the business, typically, use their strategic positions to intervene and cover the tracks for their men on the ground in the Niger Delta

The International Oil Companies, IOCs, some privileged NNPCL officials, and other high-profile Nigerians are part of it.

The comprehension that the strategy all the while was a wild goose chase was already causing disquiet in the security circle.

High-level complicity

Lately, TSSL and security operatives working with Tompolo uncovered a 4-km underwater theft pipeline connected to the sea from the Forcados Terminal with a loading port, and 58 tapping points in Delta and Bayelsa states through which oil thieves had been bleeding the country.

On October 6, they ambushed and apprehended eight members of a suspected crude oil syndicate while they were pumping crude oil from a Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, pipeline, in Delta State, into an improvised 87-meter-long ocean-going vessel, MT Deino.

At the time Tantita operatives swooped on the vessel, the team leader, Captain Temple Manaseh, from Bayelsa state, and seven other suspects had pumped 605 cubic meters of crude oil into the vessel with 12 compartments from an illegal connection they attached to a CNL crude pipeline, between Abiteye community and Escravos, Warri South-West Local Government Area.

Security agents had previously picked up the vessel, which bore an International Maritime Organization, IMO, number 7210526, in September, last year, for oil bunkering, but as emblematic, they released it.

Truth is that the high-profile stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil and sale in the international market, where the demand is still very high, by the security agencies, IOCs, NNPCL officials, oil bunkers, and locals, is a structured big business.

The illegal underwater 4-km pipeline, loading port, and 58 tapping points on the nation’s different pipelines discovered by TSSL have existed for almost nine years and security officials, stationed with gunboats in the creeks, cannot claim ignorance.

What explains the security agencies not discovering the illegal port, tapping points, and all that Tompolo has discovered in a few weeks for two decades or more?

A simple check showed that in between the places where oil bunkers siphon crude oil from the pipelines and abandoned oil wells, some of which the IOCs leave vulnerable, security operatives have their checkpoints at strategic locations near the pipelines, but collect inducements to ‘close their eyes’.

The revelation of NNS, SOROH Commander

Commander, Nigerian Navy Ship, NNS, SOROH, Commodore Daniel Atakpa, who, recently toured some creeks in Bayelsa State, accused IOCs of purposely leaving their oil heads wide open so that oil thieves could access the crude oil.

His words: Seven months ago, we noticed that crude oil was flowing out from an oil head in Okaki. We notified the oil company that owns it, Shell. Their response is shocking. They said they have not noticed it and that they are prioritizing their operations. If you ask me, what kind of priority is that supposed to be? The Navy can only do its part, Let every other agency do theirs.”

He also said the IOCs calculatingly abandoned some old oil heads under the pretence that they were not economically viable and oil bunkers steal crude from the facilities.