Former General Manager, Planning and Business Development, Nigeria National Petroleum Company, NNPC Engineer Babajide Soyode in an interview with Arise TV monitored in Lagos has said that the federal government does not want to stop the stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil because there are so many government and industry officials involved in the stealing. Meanwhile Mr Samuel Fadeyi, the Commandant Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Cross River, says the command has confiscated 16,000 litres of stolen petroleum products. The stolen products which were mainly Automotive Gas Oil, (AGO) popularly known as diesel were stored in drums and gallons and hidden in different trailer parks in the state. Fadeyi said this when he addressed newsmen on Monday in Calabar during an inspection of the impounded petroleum products. He said the products were confiscated following directive from the Commandant-General of NSCDC that some suspicious activities were going on in some parks.
According to Soyode, the ex NNPC boss the country’s security agencies should be held responsible for a ship with 3 million barrels capacity to enter our waters and take our crude away without proper documentation and monitoring. “Too many people are involved in the stealing of crude. The security agencies are aware of what is going on and decided to look the other way because they know there are powerful people involved and of course, they are also beneficiaries. Do you know that one tanker with 3 million barrels capacity oil stolen from Nigeria translates to $300 million in the international market at current rates? Who can’t those behind the stealing not bribed with that kind of money ? in a corrupt country like Nigeria? Imagine the case of the oil tanker with that capacity that was intercepted at Equatorial Guinea with Nigerian stolen crude. How come our Navy did not detect that the ship entered our waters illegally and left without proper documentation and clearance ?” The former NNPC General Manager also said that the National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS, has to explain to the nation why they are not monitoring the sales of Nigeria crude. NAPIMS is a Corporate Services Unit (CSU) in the Exploration and Production (E&P) Directorate of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation charged with the responsibility of managing Nigeria Government’s investment in the Upstream sector of the Oil and Gas industry.
“Their objective is to enhance and maximise the margin accruing to the Nigerian Federal Government through effective supervision of the Joint Venture Companies (JVCs), Production Sharing Companies (PSCs) and Service Companies (SCs). They also engage in direct exploration of the frontier and inland basins. Why can’t NAPIMS monitor the lifting and sales of Nigeria’s crude oil ? What is their duty ? The country is loosing millions of dollars per day in revenue through oil theft. And NAPIMS is supposed to check revenue linkage in the industry. They should have monitor system in the office. They should know the number of barrels of crude oil produced a day in the country and how much is sold “.
” Other countries that produce oil have an agency that monitor every barrel of crude produced. There is the Lylod Register that can effectively do that for Nigeria. It is just for NAPIMS to join and subscribe”. On the recent surveillance contract awarded to Chief Government Tompolo, Engineer Soyode flayed the federal government for giving a contract to a private company and individual to monitor the country’s crude oil lifting. “What is our security agencies like the Navy, the Army, Customs doing if they cannot police our territorial waters. It is the duty of the Navy to monitor the entry of any ship into our waters. How can you ask an individual to do that ? It is like asking a kidnappers Kingpin to monitor kidnapping. Suppose the coming administration decide not to renew the contract, what happens ? The boys can go back to the creeks to continue the oil theft because they now know the system very well. It is wrong for the government to do that.”
