A non-governmental organisation, the Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), has strongly advised against destroying and polluting the Niger Delta environment by security operatives in the name of fighting illegal bunkering.
Tribune Online reports that it has become a pastime for security operatives led by the Joint Task Force (JTF) codenamed Operation Delta Safe (OPDS) to arrest, destroy and burn local boats loaded with illegally refined petroleum products and stolen crude oil in the region.
The national coordinator of CEPEJ, Comrade Mulade Sheriff, noted that burning of stolen crude oil boats caught in the act of oil bunkering portended grievous dangers to the Ozone layer and thereby destroying the Niger Delta Ecosystem.
Mulade further proposed to partner with the Federal Government to proffer solutions that will end crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, illicit and environmentally destructive local burning of crude oil to produce substandard petroleum products.
ALSO READ: I used to abscond from school to engage in street dancing — Onyema, Air Peace Chairman
He noted that despite militarisation of the Niger Delta to protect and safeguard oil facilities by the Federal Government in a bid to stop illegal oil bunkering, the effort has been futile because the government does not have what it takes to arrest the menace.
The environmental activist urged President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachuku, to consider local industry-based integration programme as a social welfare scheme aimed at curbing destructive approaches to the application of beneficial knowledge.
He noted that Niger Deltans are no longer safe under a depleted Ozone layer, poisoned water, polluted air and degraded environment as military personnel engage in burning of boats laden with stolen crude oil, adding that about 9 -13 million barrel, 1.5 million tones of oil has been discharged into the Niger Delta echo system without remediation.
“Federal government need to partner with CEPEJ to adopt an idea that is beneficial to Nigerians at large, including the condition driven by local illegal oil explorers.
“The problems bedevilling the Niger Delta environment is partly borne out of oil theft, unauthorised diversion of oil by any means for personal gains, use of vessels to transport illegally obtained crude oil which often result in leakage into water bodies.
“It is pertinent for the Federal Government to know that no amount of military personnel and gunboats can save Nigeria from losing over 800, 000 barrel of crude oil per day to pipeline vandalism to service more than 500 Illegal refineries operating in the region,” he warned.
and then