By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Former leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF) – one of the largest groups that led the agitation for control of resources in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo, has assured the Nigerian President that there will henceforth be zero oil theft in the region.
This is the first time in Nigeria’s history that an ex-warlord will be addressing the media at the Presidential Villa Press Auditorium with the country’s Coat of Arms insignia behind his back.
Typically, only politically exposed persons, including the President, cabinet members, governors and top diplomats address the press at the Presidential Villa.
Oil theft has in decades remained one of the means of economic sabotage in the largest country in Africa, with several billions of dollars expended in the award of contract to private firms for the security of oil installations, projects that have not mitigated activities of sea pirates in Nigeria’s South-South region.
Shortly after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu who is barely three weeks in office, Asari-Dokubo told State House reporters in Abuja that he was in the seat of power to give the country’s leader a word of comfort and assure him that oil facilities in the Niger Delta will be secured, with zero oil theft.
While assuring that he would work with the state-owned oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the former agitator fingered the military for escalating oil theft in Nigeria.
Read his full speech bellow:
“I came here today to give words of encouragement to the President for the actions and policies so far made in this less than three weeks of governing a very difficult country like Nigeria. We discussed on wide range of issues especially on security and oil theft in the Niger Delta.
“Myself and my brothers assured the President that there will be zero oil theft and vandalisation in the Niger Delta. We are going to work with NNPC, PCL, International Oil Companies to make sure that oil theft is brought to zero.
“I also want to say that oil theft is encouraged by the military. The military is at the centre of oil theft, we have to make this very very clear to the Nigerian public.
“99% of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military — the army and the navy especially. The army and the navy intimidates the civil defence (Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC) who are by status the people who are supposed to guard these pipelines.
“They receive a lot of money from NNPC, PCL, and the IOCs and just across the corner, you’ll see a household, a few meters from the household, you will see an oil bunkering refinery or tapping directly from oil well.
“It is very pathetic now, what is happening in the Niger Delta in the last eight years was unprecedented in the history of oil production anywhere in the world.
“The vandals do not only attack the pipelines, they have migrated from the pipelines and have gone directly to the oil well and they take directly from there.
“They set up haphazard facilities they call local refinery, artisanal refinery, this is crime against humanity, because the livelihood of the people is being totally destroyed, the livelihood of the people is totally destroyed.
“And every meter, you see a naval houseboat or army houseboat stationed, so the main crude thieves are the army and the navy and there are notorious naval commanders who are known to be kingpins in this bunkering activity.
“Even if they give one billion (Naira) contract to everybody in Niger Delta, because these military men are armed, from the army and the navy, nothing would happen.
“The President has promised to take decisive action to make sure that these this does not continue, it is brought to an end, it is very shameful.
“So I have volunteered to help, to assist, to do the things that are necessary to put a stop to this evil that is being perpetrated against the people of Niger Delta, the oil-bearing communities and the whole of Nigerians.
“On security, I want to clearly state that there are full-scale wars going on in different parts of this country. In the South East, the IPOB, the ESN is waging a full-scale war against the government of this country. Many local governments, many communities are deserted, schools are closed, hospitals are closed.
“In the same vein, in Niger, in Zamfara, in Plateau, in Kaduna, in Yobe, in Borno, we are only talking about Boko Haram. Boko Haram is just a tip of the iceberg. There is a full-scale war going on.
“And the blackmail of the Nigerian state, by the Nigerian military is shameful. They say they do not have enough armament, and people listen to these false narratives. They are lying. They are liars, I repeat, they are liars because I am a participant, I am a participant in this war, I fight on the side of the Nigerian state — in Plateau, in Niger, in Anambra, in Imo, in Abia, and in Rivers State and in Abuja.
“Today you are travelling to Kaduna on this road, it is not the army that made you to travel to Abuja or travel to Kaduna, vice-versa. It is my men employed by the government of Nigerian state, stationed in Niger.
“Today, you go to Baga, you go to Shiroro, you go to Wase, we have lost so many men and we do not use in all these engagements, we don’t even have one percent of the armament deployed by the Nigerian military, one percent and we have resounding success. So this blackmail must end. They have enough resources to fight.
“Instead of fighting, they are busy stealing, they are busy making the government spend unnecessarily.
“Where is Dogo today who was terrorising Niger-Kaduna, where is Dogo today? He’s nowhere.
“Let us be able to support the government and don’t listen to these false narratives because somebody must tell the truth. We don’t have hands? An average person is carrying two magazines of AK-47 bullet. They Nigerian Army is carrying inside their truck 20, 30 cans. Two magazines of AK-47 is 25 rounds of ammunition. 700 or 750 make up a can and they have 20, 25, 30 in their truck.
“They will leave on slight attack, they will abandon these weapons for the bandits, the insurgents to take them, to capture them. So in actual, the insurgents are harvesting from the Nigerian military and police to further their insurgency and most of these people, are they actually insurgents? They are mere criminals, they are mere criminals.
“You go to some camps, you see 200 vehicles stolen from some people. Who are you owners of these vehicles? They cut these vehicles into parts, they sell them. You go to some places, you find out that human parts are being brought out. They are put in coolers and sold, human organ trafficking etcetera.
“Governor of Anambra state, Soludo has also arrested to it in one of his interviews. So what I am trying to say here, I as a person who is in the know, even before the President came, I knew we will never have any person like him aspiring for this position. I am not flattering him now, I said it before the primaries, I said it during the course of the election, I said it after the election.
“So all the forces of evil and darkness that have come to fight to ensure that Ahmed Bola Tinubu did not become President, they are benefitting from the institution failure that is going on.”
