The Nigerian Navy has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited of not revealing the true cause(s) of crude oil theft in the country, but reeling out exaggerated figures to save its face.
This disclosure was made to the Senate Committee on Economic and Financial Crimes by the Navy Chief of Training and Operations, Rear Admiral Solomon Agada, during an interactive briefing of the relevant agencies implementing the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022 at the National Assembly. Our correspondent exclusively observed the proceedings.
Agada revealed that at several interactions with the NNPC, the Navy had explained the causes of fuel scarcity to the company that there was no way anyone would steal 100,000 barrels of oil in a day, but the NNPC had deliberately continued to mislead Nigerians.
He made the disclosure when the Chairman of the committee, Senator Suleiman Kwari, questioned him on why the country continued to experience cases of oil theft if the waterways were secured as Agada posited.
Kwari queried, “The oil theft issue has been a very worrisome one to every Nigerian and more importantly, it has negatively impacted our economy. How come the Navy hasn’t been able to solve the issue of oil theft and if the Navy is claiming that the waterways are secured, why are there still cases of oil theft?”
Agada explained in his responses, “The challenge is that because of the criminal activity inshore by the illegal refiners in tapping into the export lines, those export lines have not been in operation since early this year.
“The major terminals have not been able to process fuel for export since around February/March and instead of the NNPC telling the Federal Government that this product is not brought out to be able to process as export, they say the oil was stolen
