The Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has charged Nigerians living close to oil and gas pipelines to see such pipelines as personal belongings and protect them.
The General Manager, Group Public Affairs Department, Mr Ohi Alegbe, made the appeal in a statement made available to the press at the end of the flag-off of a two-day anti-pipeline vandalism campaign  in Lagos recently.
He charged residents on the need to be vigilant and report all suspicious movement around pipeline areas to the corporation or security agencies.
Alegbe, noted that oil that was spilled into the environment when vandals and oil thieves hack into pipelines destroy aquatic lives.
The NNPC image maker said that hacked pipelines also pollute the ground water and render waters from boreholes unsafe for consumption.
Furthermore, he explained that when once the underground water was contaminated, that it makes the soil unfit for any kind of agricultural activity.
According to him, it also reduces the quality of life of people living around the affected area,  while calling on host communities to join in the fight against vandalism.
He was of the view that host communities were the worst hit from each attack on pipelines, and warned against any form of support to such criminals.
It would be recalled that attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta region, has been on the decline since the amnesty programme of late president Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua.