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By Joel Anekwe
Nigeria loses about 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day to oil theft. This is according to a report by Transparency International in collaboration with Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).
The report also has it that between 2016 and 2017, the country lost a whopping US$105 billion (N3.8 trillion), which is nearly half of the country’s 2019 budget of N8.9 trillion.
This revelation is according to a report by Transparency International launched in collaboration with Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) in Port Harcourt Thursday on ‘Military Involvement in Oil Theft in the Niger Delta.’
The report has it that the country loses about 200,000 barrels of oil every day to oil theft, also called oil bunkering, where participants steal oil from pipelines, refine the oil and then sell it to local, regional and international markets.
According to the report, “The illegal oil industry in the Niger Delta has received much international attention over the past few decades. The illegal activity has led to revenue losses as oil is siphoned off and stolen; the human cost and environmental pollution have similarly been significant.”
It added: “Regular spills of oil arguably caused by oil theft and sabotage, have polluted the waterways, contaminated crops and other food sources and released toxic chemicals into the air. In 2017, reports emerged that oil spills doubled the risk of child mortality in the Delta region.”
It said that what remained under-explored is the extent to which the illegal trade is enabled by one of Nigeria’s key institutions, the Armed Forces.
But a discussion session on the report indicted a wide range of stakeholders led by the entire security agencies and in this case the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) specifically created by government to fight the illicit trade.
Participants concluded that beyond all the other security agencies comprising the JTF, the traditional institution, the community development committees, youth and women associations, even including children are all involved in the trade.
They all however agreed that the illegal oil trade also thrives on the support of military high-ranking officers and politicians being tacitly encouraged by a Federal Government that is not prepared to seriously fight against the illicit trade that has completely devastated the Niger Delta environment and put everyone at the risk of death from related diseases.
The report also indicted the military saying: “Existing research suggests that members of the Nigerian Armed Forces have enabled and benefited from the illegal trade in a number of ways. Often these benefits come from providing protection both ensuring military officials turn blind eye to illegal activity and protecting oil thieves access to extraction points from rivals in exchange for financial bribes.”
As a way forward, the participants comprising members of the civil society organizations, journalists, committee chiefs and security agencies, called for the use of information technology and the social media to name and shame individuals and institutions caught in the act and the sustenance of the campaigns against the activities of the oil thieves on public space.
In an interview with journalists, the executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) Salaudeen Hashim, said the centre, by the report, seeks to sustain the momentum on the discussion on the military involvement in criminality in the Niger Delta and not to allow the matter to be swept under the carpet.
He said: “What we are doing is not to point accusing fingers at anyone, just put the issues as they are on the public domain and allow citizens to engage it constructively,” He added that it also behooves on the Rivers State Governor who gave vent to the recent discussion on the matter through his accusation against the GOC of the 6 Division of the Nigerian Army to be involved in oil theft to provide evidence to buttress his allegation.
He added that the GOC also should take out time to address the governor’s allegation saying that the explanation by the GOC that the governor was accusing him because he refused to accept bribe from him was not enough as it did not answer the question raised by the accusation.
