Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Some members of the military and powerful people in government have been accused of being behind crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
This allegation was made by a former Niger Delta militant leader, Mr Asari Dokubo, after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja on Friday.
Addressing newsmen after the meeting, he said 99 per cent of oil theft in the country was being perpetrated by men in the military, promising to ensure this is nipped in the bud.
He informed journalists that Mr Tinubu, who he described as his father, has promised to look into this allegation and bring them to book.
“The army and the navy are behind oil theft. They intimidate civil defence, who are by law expected to protect installations.
“They tap directly from the oil head. What has been happening in the last eight years is unprecedented anywhere in the world,” Mr Dokubo alleged, adding that they “set up facilities they call local refineries.”
The former militant leader described this as “a crime against humanity” as the “livelihood of the people is being destroyed.”
“The main culprits are the army and navy. There are notorious army commanders known to be behind oil bunkering,” he emphasised.
However, he has volunteered to use his boys to assist and do the necessary to halt the evil, saying the people of the region often blamed for oil theft are not responsible for the act as they do not have the wherewithal to perform such a sophisticated act of stealing.
He alleged that it was an act of blackmail for the military to say that they had insufficient armaments to deal with insecurity, accusing them of forfeiting their weapons to the insurgents, which continued to fuel the insurgency.
