Who is stealing Nigeria’s oil… Nigeria’s blood?

The Federal Government of Nigeria is singing that oil theft in the country has reached alarming proportions. The government raised the song of lamentation through the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva. I think we should echo the song seriously with the hope that there would be a reprieve. There are two main verses of the song by our government. They are that: Thieves are stealing a whole 400,000 barrels of oil per day and, secondly, because of this, we cannot now meet our 1.8 million barrels per day quota allotted us by OPEC. It’s a sad song, a song of lamentation of the loss of country, loss of values of innocence and loss of life and livelihood. This song says our country is teetering at the precipice, dangling between life and death.

Oil theft in massive proportions as we have it in Nigeria today is making the scourge look like a game of death. Nigeria and its bumbling economy are the sure puns and victims. Oil theft is now the southern Nigerian counterpart of the northern Nigerian terrorism. They are both well-orchestrated, have super dudes in the know, are fatal and are seemingly intractable. This end-game has left Nigeria to steadily ooze to her inevitable end after her arteries and veins have been indiscriminately perforated. These veins and arteries bear oil with the country’s heart works – the blood which is our national life.

The thieves are steadily ruining our national economic life. They crudely shave our heads and leave us helpless, bleeding and battered. Who are these barbers from hell that lack the fine touch and smooth glide of the real barbers? Who are those experts that can decipher which pipeline carries what product and at what time, temperature, and to where? How do these unauthorised people get access to the inner recesses of our privacy unhindered? Why are we allowing this unfettered, unmitigated rape? Is it that in truth, there is nothing we can do to stop this economic sabotage? There are arms and legs to this and I still believe that the man who carries the oil from the attic is not as much a thief as the man who helps him to place it on the ground.

Recently, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited, Mallam Mele Kyari, was in Delta State with a Federal Government delegation led by Chief Sylva. They parleyed with Governor Ifeanyi Okowa. Kyari said oil vandals had dealt with Nigeria so much that they now need the support and “buy-in of the Delta government.” The Federal Government had just realised that “stopping oil theft requires the concerted efforts of the federal and state governments; oil companies and security agencies.” The NNPCL boss told Okowa that Nigeria was losing $1.9 billion monthly. “This has done extensive damage to the environment and losing $1.9 billion every month is colossal, considering the nature of the global economy at the moment.” Mallam Kyari, there’s no time the loss of an amount as humongous as $1.9 billion is not colossal except, perhaps by Nigerian standards.

The delegation was in Imo State to see Governor Hope Uzodimma with the same message. The delegation said “as a country, we can hardly meet our OPEC production quantum of 1.99 million barrels per day with our current production level of 1.4 million barrels per day which is currently being threatened by the activities of these economic saboteurs.” Sylva said oil theft had reached the level of “a national emergency because the theft has grown wings and reached a very bad crescendo.” He also expressed concern that “the menace had persisted in spite of the efforts by the federal and state governments to arrest it.” So, the new approach is to involve the host communities. And the Nigerian Army, through General Lucky Irabor, said when government, stakeholders and communities get “involved to a reasonable percentage,” they should “leave the rest for the Army.”

The timing of this awakening by our Ogas at the top is a pointer to our level of seriousness to fight the scourge. Nigeria has not just dipped in its OPEC expectations nor has it just waned before the very eyes of the watching world. Mr. Tony Elumelu raised his concerns in March this year. Businessman Elumelu sounded alarmed and surprised like a mother whose ears were full about her child’s unwholesome exploits. He had tweeted: “And speaking of security, our people are afraid. Businesses are suffering. How can we be losing over 95 per cent of our oil production to thieves? Why are we paying taxes if our security agencies can’t stop this?” When Elumelu spoke, the figures of the stolen oil had not reached the 400,000 barrels figure that the government had released.

Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) founded in 2004 “to support those affected by the extractive industry and weak governance” has seen it all in the Niger Delta. One of its officials, Alexander Sewell put the amount of oil stolen in Nigeria in 2021 at 220,000 barrels per day on average. Sewell however cautioned that “there are no tools to measure production in Nigeria, or even to know what is being transported along the pipelines, nor what is actually reaching the oil terminals.” He also hinted that since there are no tools to properly measure oil production and export in Nigeria, the figure by the government might be slightly higher than the reality. “The only way to get an idea is to look at exports,” Sewell explained to Le Monde in an interview that if Nigerian production averages 1.4 million barrels per day and up to 20 per cent of the total production is stolen, then “the government’s figures are higher than the reality, which is probably a bit lower.”

From whichever prism it is viewed including Sewell’s, stealing 20 percent of our 1.4 million daily exports is still a huge disservice. 280,000 barrels of oil at the current rate would amount to a substantial amount for a struggling country like ours. Therefore, there are causes for concern in and around the oil producing areas and the entire country. The acute environmental degradation leading to the loss of flora and fauna apart, the cost in terms of human life makes the stoppage of the blatant robbery a very urgent task. We have had enough of the lethargy and verbal victories. In April when one illegal refinery went up in flames in Imo State, more than 100 people lost their lives. The president gave an order then that culprits in the crime must “all be apprehended and brought to justice.” Months after that presidential charge, there are no reports that anyone has been charged for the heinous crime against the Nigerian state, humanity and the environment. Instead, the country is just lamenting the increasing stealing of Nigerian oil.

A study the SDN conducted in 2012 revealed that “75 percent of stolen oil was shipped out of Nigeria.” Not many are sure this isn’t still the case now, considering the arrest of a tanker said to have the capacity to convey three million barrels of oil on Thursday. That tanker was loaded in Nigeria and had evaded the Nigerian authorities. However, the Nigerians reached out to Equatorial Guinea where it was nabbed. This underscores the enormity of the problem in our hands.

Stealing of oil is not for the uninitiated. It is also not for the lily-livered. It also involves a strong team of well-coordinated networks of military and civilian accomplices, foreign and local. So it’s a turf for the tough. But are we that weak or we have just left our flanks open?

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