Oil workers to embark on protest over oil theft in Niger Delta, blame soldiers
The President, PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, in an interview with journalists in Abuja, blamed soldiers and other security agents protecting pipelines in the country for the continued oil theft.
He said the association would halt oil production if the government failed to stop the theft.
He also disclosed that the association would hold rallies simultaneously today in Abuja, Warri, Kaduna and Lagos.
According to him, the rallies would let the government know that PENGASSAN members were tired of producing oil that would be stolen eventually by thieves despite the protection of pipelines by security agencies.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, had last week Tuesday said the spate of vandalism had prompted the NNPC to shut down its entire network of pipelines conveying petroleum products nationwide.
“When we say we are losing several 700,000 barrels of crude oil daily, we mean it. This is opportunity loss. There is no company that will produce oil and then you lose 80 percent of that and continue to produce the oil.
“So we deliberately shut down the pipelines whenever we see these infractions getting to a limit that we cannot manage. So that means as we speak today, we know for sure, there’s at least 700,000 barrels that we could have produced that we can’t because we cannot guarantee the safety of the pipeline,” Kyari explained.
Lamenting the effect of the oil theft, Osifo called for the imprisonment of security officers assigned to protect pipelines from where humongous volumes of crude oil were being stolen daily, stressing that many oil companies were shutting down operations due to this development.
The President, PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, told journalists in Abuja that the international oil companies such as Agip, Total, Shell and Addax, had stopped oil production in some wells due to the theft, as the jobs of workers in these firms were currently threatened.
He said, “If after this rally there is no traceable progress, as an association, we may be forced to withdraw our workforce from the operating companies, because we cannot continuously send crude oil into the pipelines and at the end of the day the pipelines are vandalised by people who don’t know how the oil was produced.
“Some of these pipeline vandals, when you stop production into a line, they call our members and threaten them, asking our members why they stopped production into the line and that they should open the line.
“So, the lives of our members are even at risk. For someone to have your phone number and call you, that means the person knows you. Therefore, we can no longer condone this, government must sit up.”
Vandals’ technology
Osifo said the vandals had been deploying sophisticated technology, as it was not just members of host communities that were perpetuating the crime.
“It is a cartel that does this, because to be able to compromise a pipeline, the technology you need is so superb and not something that can be done easily,” he stated.
He added, “So, today it has become necessary for us as an association to cry out and shout because if necessary steps are not taken we will be forced to embark on a nationwide solidarity by withdrawing our members from production.
“Let us join and assist the government, since they are not responding to what they ought to do, they are not responsive in fighting this criminality, being that they don’t have the political will to fight this criminality, we will withdraw our members and let the country run aground.
“We cannot continue to produce and some people will siphon it, sell and become millionaires in dollars on a daily basis. We can no longer support this.”
The association called for the detention of security personnel assigned to protect the pipelines from where crude oil was being stolen in large volumes daily.
Osifo said, “Government must wake up. You cannot send naval officers, civil defence operatives, as well as men and women of the Nigerian Army to the creeks of the Niger Delta and you don’t develop a mechanism to hold them accountable.
“Accountability is key because when you send people to man certain areas and the pipelines there are compromised, how many of these people are jailed? This is because there is no accountability.
“If there is no consequence management and you keep reshuffling them every six months, what you are only doing is creating cycles of millionaires from oil theft every six months. And that is what is currently happening.”
He added, “So, we call on the Chief of Defence Staff, Chief of Naval Staff and Chief of Army Staff that they must know the soldiers that they send to the creeks as well as other officers they send there and they must hold them accountable.
“Anyone who defaults should be put in prison. When you send 1,000 of them at once to prison and you send another 1,000 there to secure the pipelines, the new set will know that it is no longer business as usual.
“But when you send some of them there and they are compromised and you now transfer them to other locations in Nigeria, and then send another new group there, this new group will replicate or even do worse than what the previous group did.”
The association’s president said the challenge was real, as there was total compromise and total connivance, stressing that “we are saying that the rhetorics and too much talk must stop. We must all close ranks to stop this.”
Osifo further noted that PENGASSAN had repeatedly proffered measures to the government on how to tackle the menace, such as the deployment of latest pipeline technology, among others, but expressed regret that the ideas had not been implemented.
Arrested vessel
Meanwhile, federal government has initiated moves to prosecute those behind the Motor Tanker Heroic Idun vessel that disregarded the detention orders of the Nigerian Navy and escaped from the Nigerian waterways to Equatorial Guinea in August.
The Director, Naval Information, Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, on Wednesday affirmed that the vessel, which was later arrested in Equatorial Guinea with the help of the intelligence provided by the Navy, would be repatriated to Nigeria and that the captain, owners and others involved in the infraction would be prosecuted. He noted that the navy possessed evidence to press charges.
