•Says Nigeria loses 180,000 crude oil barrels to oil thieves daily
Written by Idowu Samuel Friday, 25 May 2012
CRIMINALS and crude oil thieves have taken over the oil fields in the Niger Delta and have used the proceeds of oil theft to hijack political power in Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), raised the alarm on Thursday.
The Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparent Initiative (NEITI), Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had earlier lamented the activities of the crude oil thieves in the creeks of Niger Delta, whose activities she said had denied Nigeria a whopping sum of $4.6 million in just two years.
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Austin Oniwon, lamented the increasing wave of criminal activities in the Niger Delta, which he said was causing Nigeria to lose an estimated 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Ghana, he noted, required only 120,000 barrels of crude oil daily to survive, expressing dismay that the rate at which criminals were prospecting for crude oil illegally in the country had reached an alarming level.
Oniwon said the miscreants behind illegal oil bunkering in the zone had sponsored the election of local government chairmen and now have the capacity to sponsor and produce more state governors, adding that they even have the potential to fund the emergence of a Nigerian president in the future.
He dropped the hints when members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), paid him a courtesy visit, as part of their oversight function, as he urged the lawmakers to enact legislation aimed at arresting the increasing wave of oil theft in Nigeria.
He said it was regrettable to note that criminals had taken over the most part of Niger Delta...” They have amassed so much wealth that they are beginning to look for political power. They have been sponsoring local government chairmen. The chairmen have also been sponsoring governors. And these people, if not checked in time, will one day produce the president of Nigeria.”
He said such a situation had occurred in countries like Colombia and Mexico where criminals dealing in drugs sponsored the presidents of the countries as a means of promoting their illegal trades.
Oniwon said Nigeria should waste no time in combating the nefarious activities of the oil thieves against the implication of its neighbours like Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, which are now producing oil in commercial quantities, a development which may cripple the economy of Nigeria, anchored mainly on oil.
The NNPC boss urged the National Assembly not to delay in passing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which, he noted, was capable of curbing irregularities in the Nigerian oil sector, adding that the bill, if eventually passed into law had the capacity to promote the emergence of a strong national oil company.
The House Committee Chairman on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Honourable Ajibola Muraina, who led members to the NNPC Towers, Abuja, equally lamented the growing capacity of crude oil thieves, as he urged the government of Nigeria to devise stringent means of preventing criminals from prospecting Nigeria’s crude oil illegally.
Muraina said the House of Representatives would work harmoniously with NNPC in sanitising the oil industry, even as he urged the corporation to, henceforth, begin to implement most of the recommendations by the House of Representatives and the Senate on the means of maintaining sanity in the Nigerian oil sector.
via Tribune http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/front-page-news/41484-oil-thieves-have-hijacked-political-power-nnpc-raises-alarm-says-nigeria-loses-180000-crude-oil-barrels-to-oil-thieves-daily
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