Nigeria’s sole oil company the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has accused religious leaders, security agencies, and even some NNPC staff of colluding to steal the nation’s crude oil.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the company, Kyari made this known during the 49th session of the weekly ministerial brief at the State House in Abuja, asserting that contrary to widely held insinuations, the oil theft is largely being carried out by Nigerians.
Kyari claimed that the stolen products, pipelines are found mostly in churches and mosques.
‘When a fire outbreak happened in one of our pipelines, we discovered that some of the pipelines were actually connected to individual’s homes. And not only that, and with all sensitivity to our religious beliefs, you know, some of the pipelines and some of the products that we found, are actually in churches and in mosques,‘ Kyari said.
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‘This means that everybody is involved. There’s no way you will take products, bring them in trucks in populated neighborhoods, load them, and leave without everybody else knowing about it. Everybody includes members of the community, members of the religious leaders and also and most likely government officials of all natures, including security agencies personnel.’
Kyari went further to reveal that vandalism has led to the shutdown of the entire network of pipelines for petroleum products distribution in Nigeria.
The NNPC Boss mentioned that a national reserve company will be established to manage the pipelines on a commercial basis to efficiently put them to use for the distribution of products across the country.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Malam Garba Shehu who is the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity has disclosed that the federal government would soon reveal the identities of important personalities behind oil theft in the country.
Shehu pointed out that as part of efforts to save the country’s economy from sabotage by a greedy few, security operatives have on many occasions raided locations where illegal oil bunkering thrive.