A group, the Informed Stakeholders of the Niger Delta, has reacted to President Bola Tinubu’s recent directive to security agencies to “crush” oil thieves in the oil-rich region.
Politics Nigeria reported that President Tinubu recently gave a matching order to service chiefs, heads of security, and intelligence agencies to end the criminal activities around the exploration and sale of the country’s crude in the Niger Delta.
But in a swift reaction, the group urged the President Tinubu to calm down, study, and discern the real issues before giving out such order.
The group recalled that it was not the first time a Nigerian president would be giving such an order adding that the major concern is how he expects service chiefs to stop oil thieves “when top military officers are part of the oil cabal sponsoring illegal oil refining and crude oil theft”.
The stakeholders further informed President Tinubu that he he must step on toes if he truly wants to tackle Nigeria’s age-long problem of oil theft.
Chief Nengi James of the Ijaw Youth Council said: “The crude oil theft in Nigeria is an organized theft between the military and some political bigwigs.
“If Mr. President’s answer is confirmatory, we advise him to identify, expose, and penalize top military officers, including Army, Police, Airforce, DSS, Navy, etc (both serving and retired); Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPCL; International Oil Companies, IOCs; and politicians involved in crude oil theft,” he reiterated reiterated.
They stressed that after exposing and punishing the bad eggs, the President should rejig the security architecture of the country.
The stakeholders also revealed that some highly placed government officials from the Villa collaborated with the oil cabal in the previous governments.
They further maintained that oil thieves use technology to steal crude oil; therefore, the country must apply technology to prevent oil theft, not repairing pipelines after they had been breached.
