Oil Piracy and Hegemonistic Complicity

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground. It will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through. It will blow up everything in its way”.
Emile Zola (1840-1902) J’accuse

Some Ijaw / Urhobo / Itsekiri adages runs thus, “the worm that eats the kola-nut is inside the kola-nut” and “how can a man be circumspect and careful with a witch in his own house” and “it is the rat in the house that invites the ones outside into the house”. It is clear without a tincture of doubt that the petroleum industry is filled with all kinds of players and the oil pirates are from there and beyond. It is now clearly obvious, that pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, and illegal oil bunkering and other horrendously fraudulent acts in the oil industry are carried out by Nigerians and their recruited surrogates in the NNPC, some of its subsidiaries and oil multinational companies etc.

As for refined product, barring the reckless action of desperate and psychotic thieves, it is only the Pipelines and Products Marketing Staffers that know the kind of products being pumped down the pipelines at any point – in – time. It is they who know whether it is Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), and High Pour Quality Fuel Oil (HPFO), Low Pour Quality Fuel Oil (LPFO), JET A1 etc. They give the information to the criminal syndicates who now position the tankers and barges to siphon the products.
The NEITI report has also been befuddled by vortexes and counter- vortexes of denials, accusations and contradictions. In a joint meeting between NEITI and PPPRA at the instance of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the two agencies said that the missing fund has indeed been deposited in the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The Joint Reconciliation Meeting also posited that the two organizations have devised strategies aimed at addressing other matters arising from the NEITI 2009-2011 audit report through the instrumentality of the Inter- Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) set up by the President to address remedial issues arising from the audit report. This belated accounts fence mending is seen by critics as a jigsaw puzzle calculated to bamboozle the Nigerian masses and launder the image of the Jonathan’s administration.
Virtually all the oil companies indicted by the NEITI REPORT have all denied the allegations made against them. The Acting Group General manager Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Abuja echoing the retort of the current Group Managing Director, Mr. Andrew Yakubu said “Under the current Group Managing Director, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, the NNPC recorded an all-high 2.7 million barrels of crude oil per day last year. But this evadable feat was short-lived because of Crude theft, oil bunkering and the incessant vandalization of crude oil pipelines”.
He further posited that “in as much as the NNPC is not a perfect organization just like any other, it should be objectively criticized and not vilified all the time. Efforts should be made to appreciate its challenges. Some of these negative publications and destructive criticisms have far-readily implications on the business relationship between the Corporation and its International Partners. They impact also on the nation’s ability to bring in investors”. But he was silent on whether the NNPC is guilty as charged or whether it will refund the money demanded by NEITI REPORT. SO THERE ARE NO OIL THIEVES AND THE NNPC IS NOT INVOLVED?
It is however clear from the politicization of the report and the culture of gross impurity and defiance being played by the castigated oil companies that the sysiphyean albatross of oil bunkering, crude oil theft, pipeline vandalization and corruption in the oil industry will linger on in the deepest recesses of our national and petroleum industry’s psyche for along time to come.

*this was published in the Daily Times dated Friday, December 12, 2014