FG’ll no longer tolerate sabotage of oil pipelines – Sylva
The Federal Government has warned that it would no longer tolerate the sabotage of oil pipelines by unscrupulous persons anywhere in the country.
Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, who issued the warning while playing host to the management team of the Daily Times in his office on Monday, said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration would not stomach the destruction of critical oil assets in the country.
While reiterating that payment of compensation to oil bearing communities has always been a topmost priority of the president, the minister however said that it would no longer be business as usual for those who engage in vandalisation of oil pipelines and other criminal activities.
He cautioned that henceforth, all issues of oil spillage would be thoroughly investigated to ascertain whether the spill occurred naturally or it was caused by human activities.
‘’The Federal Government has done a lot for oil bearing communities, and you know I am from the oil producing state. Look at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), it was established to deal with this same issue of compensation and overall development for the oil bearing communities.
‘’Unfortunately, trillions of naira spent there have gone into private pockets in the past. So these investigations have to be done first to ascertain that the fault is from the oil companies before any compensation would be made.
“Before we came on board, there was a lot of impunity. Before now there was a situation where crude oil was sold and the proceeds were diverted.
“You are a living witness to that. It is a very recent history; crude oil was sold and the country didn’t see the proceeds; it went into private accounts but that can’t happen again because of the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
“Everything goes into the federation account and everybody can see it.
“Leakages have been blocked. If we are to have the windfall today, Nigeria will see the benefits”, he said.
Earlier, Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Daily Times newspaper, Aliu Akoshile while unveiling the rebranding process the paper is currently undergoing, said that the new team is taking Nigeria’s media heritage to greater heights.
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“We came with the mandate to revive, rebrand and expand the horizon of the Daily Times as Africa’s media heritage.
“The mandate is not just to bring back the old Daily Times of Nigeria because news dissemination today is happening at thespeed of light.
“When Daily Times was at its peak, there was no internet, there were no digital social media platforms.
‘’Our mandate is to take the paper to the future. We have started that by going strictly into the digital space. Our online presence is very strong and vibrant as we receive comments from Nigeria and abroad”, he said.
