Crude Oil Theft: Why Military Are Destroying Vessels — Ned Nwoko

Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta), the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment, has stated that the military destroys ships that are captured transporting contraband and stolen crude oil in order to hide or obscure evidence.

Nwoko made this claim while chatting with reporters in Abuja.

He maintained that it made no sense to remove evidence that points to a crime being committed unless the military was corrupted.

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“What is the point? It does not make any sense.

“You know, if somebody is found in possession of stolen goods, do you say, oh, the way to deal with this is to destroy it? No. You take it from them, you document it, you preserve it, you charge the culprits.

“And then you produce that in evidence against them in court and ultimately return that product to the owner,” he said.

The congressman insisted that there may be involvement in the theft of crude oil from NNPC executives, oil firms, and the police.

According to Nwoko, stealing oil can sometimes take weeks to complete, and for an operation like this to succeed, certain parties must be complicit.

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“Well, I think the military is complicit. You know they do this because some of them might have compromised.

“They have been bought over because to load this kind of commodity vessels- the crude – it takes weeks sometimes because of the size of the vessels, it takes time.

“So it’s not as if you just come one hour, you load it, and then you run. So it takes time to get to the point of loading, and most of them are actually loaded from the official platforms.

“So who are those involved? Who are those managing those platforms? The oil companies, The producing companies, NNPC officials, the police, may be all of them are involved,” he added.

 

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