Victor EzejaSecurity experts have called for a probe of the activities of security operatives involved in fighting oil theft in the Niger Delta.
The call follows the report of security operatives of the Joint Task Force, Operation Delta Safe, in collaboration with Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited, setting ablaze an intercepted vessel carrying about 800,000 litres of stolen crude oil in the Escravos area of Delta State.
A video showed the vessel being set ablaze by a military helicopter.
Executive Director of Operations and Technical at Tantita Security, Captain Warred Enisuoh and the Commander of the Joint Task Force, Operation Delta Safe, Rear Admiral Olusegun Ferreira, who spoke in an interview with journalists said the oil cargo was illegally sourced from a well-jacketed offshore in Ondo State with no valid documentation at the time of the arrest.
The vessel was said to have operated in stealth mode for the last 12 years but was this time caught by men of Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited, a security outfit owned by former militant leader Government Ekpemepulo aka Tompolo and contracted by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to deal with oil thieves.
According to reports, 11 Nigerians and one Ghanaian were on board the vessel. The Joint Task Force, Operation Delta Safe, in collaboration with Tantita Security Services said they would continue to protect the nation’s oil and gas infrastructure within the Niger Delta region with the ultimate goal of ending the menace of crude oil theft.
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However, a former head, Security, planning and strategy, at Shell Nigeria, Madaki Ameh, who spoke on the incident, alleged that there is a shady deal in the operation and called for deeper investigations to unravel what happened from the point of impounding the vessel to when it was eventually destroyed.
Ameh, who appeared on Channels Television Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, said the public needed to know what happened to the crude oil found in the vessel before it was set ablaze. He said the security operatives needed to follow due process in handling the matter.
“There is a lot that is fishy with this alleged seizure. First of all, if you seize 800,000 litres of crude oil, that’s a lot of money by the time, you convert it into barrels. Where is the product, you can’t just seize 800,000 litres of crude oil and you don’t tell us where it was pumped to and what they are going to do with it, and within a day or two, you have scuttled the vessel and set it ablaze, without a court order, without any directive from anybody and that’s the right thing to do? And you want everybody to believe that you’ve done the right thing because you want to send a clear signal that crude oil theft would not be condoned,” Ameh stated.
Speaking on the nature of crude oil theft in the country, the security expert said it is an organised crime that involves three key segments of players. “The first segment involves the sponsors, the people you can compare to the drug barons in the drug trade; these are the owners of the crude or the major beneficiaries of the sale of the crude when it is eventually disposed of. Then the next people in the chain are the criminals, the foot soldiers (the crew of the vessels) – those who are actually involved in doing the tapping, moving the crude from the point where it is stolen into the vessel where it will be eventually carried away from. And then the final chain is the market where this crude oil is eventually sold,” Ameh stated.
He said that to completely end crude oil theft, the authorities must deal with it decisively by destroying the entire strata involved in the crime. He pointed out that every crude consignment has an identity of where it emanates from and ends up either in a refinery or bigger vessels that ship them off the coast.
He said the unfortunate reality is that Nigeria is the only country among oil-producing nations that has incidents of crude oil theft, adding that it has to do with a deep level of criminality in the system that encourages it.
On his part, Lt. Commodore John Danjuma, a former Navy Intelligence Officer also faulted the destruction of the vessel by security operatives. He said due process ought to have been followed such as charging the suspects to court to get more information from them as to people behind the illegal business so that a solution to it can be sorted.
“When such vessels are impounded and destroyed, you are also destroying a lot of information that could lead us in preventing such acts from happening in future,” Danjuma stated.
Burning Vessel Controversy
Setting ablaze vessels caught with stolen crude oil is not new in Nigeria. In October 2022, the Nigerian Navy destroyed an illegal oil bunkering vessel arrested with stolen crude oil off the creeks of the Niger Delta.
The action then, generated reactions from the public who questioned the rationale behind burning the vessel looking at the economic value of the crude. They equally observed that the vessel could have been saved to serve as an exhibit in court while prosecuting the oil thieves behind the illegal business.
Speaking further in the programme, Mr Ameh said there need for a deeper investigation to unravel what is going on in the system around oil facilities, especially in the oil-producing communities across the country.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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