As a panacea to curbing rising cases of oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the country, the Management of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), says it would deploy two of its special mission aircrafts to combat oil theft and other criminalities.
Director General (DG), NIMASA, Dr Bashir Jamoh, who disclosed this to newsmen  at Abuja, said two special mission aircrafts in the Deep Blue Project fleet of the agency will be deployed to fight oil theft and protect the nation’s economy.
He described oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and illegal refining as unlawful activities capable of threatening the economic and environmental well-being of the country.
The Director said the aircrafts from the mobile assets of the Deep Blue Project will support existing platforms being deployed by other security agencies, which NIMASA has subsisting Memorandum of Understanding with.
Jamoh explained that the aircrafts would assist in patrolling oil facilities, installations, and other assets to observe suspicious human and vessel movements in and around the facilities.
”We shall be deploying our two special mission aircrafts for aerial surveillance to prevent and fight oil theft in the country.
“With this, we aim at using the aircraft to patrol sensitive areas, record suspicious human and vessel movements to process intelligence for timely action by our security agencies.
“The oil industry is critical to our national economy and no space of the sector should be left for criminals to occupy or operate.
“We have recorded gains in our maritime security efforts and more needs to be done to sustain and consolidate on these gains.
“Our collaborations with security agencies, which we have MoUs with, are among other reasons, to collaborate and work ahead of criminal elements.
“I am happy to state that our synergies have been beneficial to the country in many ways”, the NIMASA boss stated.