Buhari Govt To Expose ‘Big Men’ Behind Illegal Oil Bunkering – Presidency

The Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government has promised to expose the identities of important individuals behind oil theft in the country.

Naija News reports that this was made known on Saturday by the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu.

He disclosed that security operatives had raided illegal oil bunkering locations to rid the country’s economy of sabotage by a greedy few.

According to the presidential aide, there might also be cases of some law enforcement agents engaging in the illegal act.

“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 told Trust TV.

He added that “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 advise immediately when sabotage of oil pipelines happen.”

Garba Shehu stated that President Buhari’s priority is ending the insurgency in the North East, adding that a lot of efforts had been put in to curtail the menace.

He added that terrorists no longer laid claim to any territory due to the might of the Nigerian Army.

Shehu, however, said cases of banditry and kidnapping resulted from the previous administration’s failure to tackle the root cause, as well as negligence of military personnel in the area of adequate training.