Oil Bunkering And Lawmakers

The governors of the 36 states of the federation under the umbrella of Nigeria Governors’, Forum (NGF) recently advocated for the review of oil-bunkering laws of Nigeria with a view to checking the increasing rate of illegal crude oil bunkering across the country.

Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Kwara State, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who made the call while briefing newsmen immediately after the meeting of the Forum in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, noted that the review was imperative due to the adverse effect of such practices on the nation’s economy.

The call coming from no other body than the Governors’ Forum, who by their vintage position as the chief security officers of various states is indeed a pointer that the call deserves prompt and urgent attention from Nigerians especially the National Assembly.

In fact, the governors revelation on the economic implication of the activities of crude-oil bunkerers is coming on the heels of the arrest of 50 illegal crude oil bunkerers in Warri, Delta State by the Joint Task Force (JTF) deployed in the coastal states of the country.

According to media reporters, the Commander of JTF’s Section I in Warri, Delta State, Col. Jamil Sarhan, said that during the raids on bunkerers in the creeks in the last three months, three vessels and 150 illegal refineries were destroyed while over 3 million litres of diesel, petrol and crude oil were seized in 2,000 drums.

He went further to reveal that 20 Cotonou-bound boats with capacity of about a million litres of crude were subsequently impounded along with 16 fuel tankers, 10 vehicles, pumping machines and hoses.

The aspect of Col. Sarhan revelation that baffled my imagination is that foreigners particularly Asians, whose proper identities could not be known were among those arrested with some Nigerians in the bunkering deal in recent times.

As if that one was not enough, the Nigerian Navy in Rivers State early this month also impounded a giant ship used for illegal crude-oil bunkering activities in Port Harcourt.

According to media reporters, the ship, which has a capacity of 1.3 million barrels of crude oil was impounded by the men of Nigerian Navy while loading crude-oil from the Tuma Manifold near Bille, belonging to Shell Petroleum Development Company. As usual, the captain of the ship, one Segun Yusuf, was arrested while nine crew men of the ship allegedly disappeared.

While it is necessary to commend the men of the Military Joint Task Force and Nigerian Navy for the efforts to stem the tide of bunkering activities in the coastal region of Niger Delta, it is also important to challenge security operatives to dig deep so as to apprehend the sponsors of the illicit activities.

This is imperative because the equipment and materials needed for bunkering activities are capital intensive and could only be procured by people who have stolen much from the nation’s treasury.

Although, it was generally believed that the emergence of militancy is the Niger Delta region gave rise to bunkering activities in the recent time. Thanks for the Federal Government’s amnesty programme.

But more worrisome  are the reports of illegal bunkering activities even now that the federal government is seriously implementing the amnesty programme which brought out militants from the creeks of the region.

It is against this backdrop that the National Assembly should heed the appeal of the governors if the bunkering activities are to be checked.

Isaac Nwankwo