The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) told the Nigerian Senate that the military should be held responsible for high level of crude oil theft in the country.
According to the National President of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, oil theft has seriously become a collaborative crime between military personnel assigned to protect oil installations and the locals that are running illegal refineries.
Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja when he appeared before the Senator Bassey Akpan , YPP, Akwa Ibom North East led Senate Ad – hoc Committee that has been mandated to investigate Oil Lifting, Theft and the impact on Petroleum Production and Oil Revenues, Osifo alleged that the military and other security agencies were aiding and abetting criminals to steal the crude with the active connivance of the regulatory agencies in charge of the nation’s petroleum industry.
In addition to this, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission ( NUPRC) disclosed that as a result of the theft, about 95.4 million litres per day or 600,000 barrels, since a barrel contains 159 litres are stolen daily.
“One of the greatest problems we have, which nobody has highlighted is that there is a strong connivance of our security forces in the crime.
“There is no doubt about this. From our Army to our Naval officers, we have information that they pay their superiors to post them to some areas in the Niger Delta.
“I can authoritatively inform this committee that men of the Nigerian Army and the Navy pay their superiors to be posted to Niger Delta.
“Even when the former Commander of the Amphibious Brigade in Port Harcourt was removed, many of the men in the Command resisted to be posted out due to lucrativeness of their operational areas.
“I think the people who have solution to this problem are not even the one sitting here. They are the ones you will invite behind the camera”.
