Stakeholders in the oil industry and security experts have called for a full scale investigation into the interception of a 800,000-litre vessel carrying stolen crude oil while heading to Cameroon.
The vessel with the name, “MT Tura ll”, laden with 150 metric tonnes of stolen crude oil on the Escravos Sea was intercepted in Ondo State by Tantita Security Services, the surveillance company of a former militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, in the early hours of Saturday and brought down to Oporosa in Gbaramatu, Warri South West LDA of Delta State.
The spokesman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Garba Deen Muhammad, said that the vessel which was owned by locally registered Holab Maritime Services Limited had no valid documentation for the crude oil cargo.
He said, “Preliminary investigations revealed that the crude oil cargo onboard was illegally sourced from a well jacket offshore Ondo State, Nigeria. There was no valid documentation for the vessel or the crude oil cargo onboard at the time of the arrest.”
The Executive Director, Technical and Operations, Tantita Security Services, Captain Warredi Enisuoh, said the original name of the vessel was “Ali-Riza-Bey” but that it was altered to “MT Tura II” to evade the eagle’s eyes of security agencies.
Efforts to get the reaction of Holab proved abortive as of the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, indigenous shippers, oil marketers and security experts have urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to order a full scale investigation into the activities of the vessel which the NNPCL claimed had been operating in stealth mode for the last 12 years as the last reported location of the vessel was Tin Can Port in July, 2011.
Board Chairman of the Nigerian Shippers Association (NISA), Chief Isaac Jolapamo, said there was no way a vessel could sail into Nigerian waters and load crude oil unnoticed, stressing that he strongly believed that the ship and its crew embarked on the journey with strong connivance of insiders.
He said, “I urge the federal government to order a full scale investigation into the matter with a view of stopping further oil theft.
“Recently, MT HEROIC IDUN was arrested with massive crude oil stolen from Nigeria. We cannot continue like this.”
The Executive Secretary of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Mr Clement Isong, urged the government not to allow the issue to be swept under the carpet, noting that the crisis in the oil sector was affecting Nigerians.
He said the investigation should be thorough and detailed and that all those involved be made to face the laws of the land to serve as a deterrent to others.
It’s an indictment on navy, other security agencies
Security experts opined that the interception of the vessel by a private company contracted by NNPCL was an indictment on the over seven security agencies operating in the maritime sector.
A security management and intelligence specialist, Kabiru Adamu, said, “We can beat around the bush, but this shows a lack of accountability and responsibility on the part of regulatory and security agencies including the navy, NIMASA, NNPC and others. It shows a failure of legislative oversights on these agencies. For this vessel to have operated undetected for a long time, it is a systemic problem.”
He added that intelligence reports had shown that some of the crude was exchanged for weapons, while ammunition easily ferried on the country’s waterways.
The Executive Director of Development Specs Academy, Prof Okey Ikechukwu, who noted that the government must not only prosecute the owner of the vessel but critically investigate all the processes that were breached, said, “The vessel is not undetected and unreported but unprosecuted because it likely involves some big interests. How can it not be detected? The possibility is that there is a compromise, there is a massive network of beneficiaries.”
Prof Ikechukwu who noted that oil theft posed a threat to the country’s internal security, as well as loss of revenue, said top echelons of the security architecture in the country needed to rise up to the occasion and put an end to the menace.
While commending the arrest of the vessel, a former Director of State Security Service (SSS), Mike Ejiofor, called for a high-powered panel to unravel some of the controversies around the vessel.
He said, “No ship enters Nigeria’s territorial waters without clearance of the navy, ports authority and other regulatory agencies. How did they not know of the presence of the vessel that stole that much oil?”
He, therefore, noted that the menace could be tackled with concerted effort from all stakeholders.
Daily Trust reports that oil theft has led to significant revenue losses for the government, as Nigeria has been unable to meet its production quota set by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
According to the NNPCL, Nigeria lost about $41.9 billion to oil theft between 2009 and 2018, while the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said the country lost 619.7 million barrels of oil valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion between 2009 and 2020.
