By Stephen Ubanna
In spite of the flood that have ravaged most parts of the Niger Delta, in the recent time, ‘Delta Security Services Limited, a private security out which has Government Ekpemupolo, popular, Tompolo, a onetime Niger Delta militant, engaged by President Muhammadu Buhari, last August, for a year contract of N48 billion, for manning the nation’s oil pipelines being vandalized by oil thieves, the Gbaramatu High Chief and his men appears to be giving a good account of themselves.
With the engagement of 17,000 men for the operation and working closely with the Traditional rulers, women, Youths and informants , including the security agencies personnel, particular the Naval personnel and officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation , NNPC, now baptized , Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NNPCL, with the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, passed by the National Asembly, Tompolo and his men, who have carried out surveillance of the nooks and crannies of the Creeks, in Delta and Bayelsa, before going out for the field operation appears to have sent a message to the Nigerian oil thieves and their foreign collaborators that it is no longer going to be business as usual.
The last two months of the operation of the Tompolo’s security outfit in Delta and Bayelsa, have been very exposing, that Nigeria government was actually losing thousands of barrels of Crude oil, worth billions of naira, to the oil thieves daily. Take for instance, in six weeks of the group operations, it had discovered 58 illegal oil points in the two Niger Delta states.
As if that was not enough, the Tompolo Security outfit, whose men , know much of the Creeks in the the Niger Delta, were said to have discovered in Okunu Community , which is a few Kilometers away from Forcados export terminal in Delta state, another illegal oil pipeline, used in siphoning oil from the legal pipelines laid the to the export terminal.
An eyewitness account said the six inches illegal oil pipe was connected to the 58 inches Forcados Crude export line that that stretches six meters into the sea where it is received from an abandoned Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, facility. The illegal pipeline, according to informed sources, was said to have been discovered at the rear of a military outpost in Ogulagha Community, in the Burutu Local government Area, of the Tompolo home state.
The source disclosed that stealing of oil through the Dela and Bayelsa water ways have been going over the years because oil Companies, oil bunkerers, NNPCL, and security personnel were jointly stealing the country’s Crude through the illegal pipelines connected to the export Crude line liked to a location in the high sea, where they finally load the stolen Crude oil in vessels and sell overseas.
Aware of the fact that there is no way an individual who do not have any knowledge of laying pipelines that would carry Crude oil to the oil terminals for export could take such risk to vandalise a legal oil pipeline to steal oil, may have informed why ,Oil spill Victims Initiative , OSPIVV, has threatened to sue NNPCL, and Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, over ‘’the illegal pipeline connections used to siphon the country’s Crude oil.
The Company may have to the conclusion that SPDC, which operates, the Forcados Terminal , in Ogulagha, is involve in the stealing of Nigeria Crude because it has a nameplate capacity of 400,000b/d, . The Multinational Oil Company, it was learnt , takes delivery of Crude from Forcados Oil Pipeline System, described as the second largest pipeline network in the in the Niger Delta, after Bonny Terminal in Rivers state.
Only recently, the Navy had destroyed a vessel caught by Tompolo’s men in the act, Warri waters. General Lucky Irabor, Chief of Defense Staff, CDS, had said it loud and clear, that any oil thief caught in the act , ‘’everything used to undertake the criminal activity would be destroyed as part of the rules of engagement ‘’’’. Perhaps, this may have informed why the Navy had destroyed the Dutch vessel,that was said to have been sold to a Nigerian.
The CDS, had said that they do not need any investigation in such matter when ‘’you find somebody who decided to deplore several pumping machines and had several hoses that are also deployed to a dug out pit where Crude oil is stored over a period but to destroy it. He had alluded to the fact that it is a trite Law that only the Federal High Court is empowered ‘’to order the interim and final forfeiture of any vessel that was used for conveying stolen crude oil’’.
Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, had said that the destruction of the Dutch vessel is illegal ,’’, noting that ‘’it was a deliberate attempt to cover- up the involvement of military personnel in the serious crime of oil theft ’’. The Legal Luminary had aid that ‘’there is no provision of the rules of engagement that authorises military personnel or other security agencies operatives to set fire or destroy vessels loaded with stolen crude ‘’. He would want Gen. Irabor ‘’to resign his appointment to prevent the sabotage of the ongoing operations in the Niger Delta designed to expose the oil thieves’’.
Recall that NNPC, had discovered recently, an illegal oil connection from Forcados Terminal that had operated for nine years siphoning about 600,000b/d, with in the period to the over sea market by the oil thieves.
Last Thursday, Nasir El-rufai, a former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, during Olusegun Obasanjo’s Administration, had said that ‘’the government has failed in the oil and gas business and should get out of the sector’’, noting that’’ NNPCL, had been declaring profit but no dividend , over the years’’.
The excavation of 58 illegal oil points and discoveries of abandoned oil pipelines in the Niger Delta by Tompolo and his men, may have thrown a big challenge to the National Security Council, NSC, under the Chairmanship of the Katsinsa state born Nigerian President.
This may have informed why the Council, has mandated Babagana Munguno, a retired Army Major Federal and National Security Adviser, NSA, to investigate all th3 issues relating to the discoveries of abandoned Crude oil pipelines and Oil points by Delta Security Services Limited, allegedly owned by Tompolo ‘’to determine the extent of the illegalities and perpetrators of the act’’.
Given an insight into the level of the Crude oil stealing in the Niger Delta investigation, Mohammed Maigari Dingyadi the minister of Police Affairs had said that ‘’a Committee would be set up as a matter of urgent economic importance by the office of the NSA, in conjunction with the office of Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the government of the Federation with a view ‘’to guaranteeing that those involved are prosecuted’’.
T But the worry of the Socio Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, a non- governmental organization, NGO, was that the illegal oil pipelines had been in existence 2001, which predates the Buhari’s Administration, till date. SERRAP, would want the office of the NSA and Secretary to the government of the Federation ‘’to do a proper and thorough investigation, widely publish the names of anyone suspected to be involved’’.
SERAP, would also want the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, under the close watch of the nononsense, Abdullaziz Bawa,’’ to ensure the prosecution of anyone suspected ‘’to be responsible for the plundering of the country’s oil wealth and he full recovery of any proceeds of the crime’’.
Kolawole Oluwdare, a Director of SERRAP, who has followed the operations of Tompolo and his men over the last two months, in Delta and Bbayelsa states, particular, and the discovery of two illegal pipelines used to steal the country’s Crude oil wealth from Forcados Terminal and connected to 48 –inch Trans Forcados Trunk line, had in an open Letter to the Nigerian President, revaled that the illegal pipelines have been operated for many years ‘’ without notice, implying flagrant violation of Constitutional and international Obligations to ensure the proper , effective and efficient management of the country Crude oil for sales in the international oil market’’.
Oluwadare, the SERRAP, Director, had said that ’’poor and socio-economically vulnerable Nigerians have continued to pay the price for the stealing of the nation’s Crude by both state and non-state actors, for sale overseas.’’.
