Malam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, has stated that the federal government will soon publish the names of significant individuals responsible for oil theft in the nation.
Shehu claimed that security personnel had stormed places where illegal oil bunkering thrives in an effort to free the nation’s economy from the sabotage of a selfish minority.
Shehu intimated that there might be instances of some law enforcement officers engaging in the unlawful activity when speaking on Trust TV’s Politics Today, but he added that additional measures were being taken to stop it.
“Oil theft is being tackled. The big problem we have in this country is that we ought to see more commitment from communities in assisting law enforcement agents. In some cases, where some actors in the law enforcement are complicit, it becomes bad,” he said.
He added that it was embarrassing for Nigeria not to meet up with the quota given to it by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
“We used to fight the OPEC for more quotas; now, they have given us and we are not able to meet up. This is embarrassing. Security agencies are fully involved in stopping this act. I am hopeful that in the next few days, the office of the National Security Adviser will be presenting to the country, big men who are promoters of this kind of business as they are being caught and illegal refineries are being bombed out.
“The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is also installing a monitoring capacity to detect or advice immediately when sabotage of oil pipelines happen,” he said.
