Former Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, asserts that the lack of coordination between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) and the Nigerian Navy could be impeding the strenuous battle against oil theft.
He also said the failure of security agencies to stamp out kidnapping and banditry exposes possible collusion between criminals and some security agents.
The lawmaker, who represented Abia South Senatorial District since 2007 in the National Assembly, made the observation recently on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande aired on Channels Television.
He lamented that despite the many technological tools available at the disposal of security agencies, oil theft, kidnapping, and insurgency continue at an alarming scale.
The ex-Deputy Governor of Abia State said: “If anybody tells you that we don’t know who steals oil, the ships that are moving up and down, in this day and age, the person is not saying the truth. Technology has made it such that you can track a human being. The earth has geo-satellites everywhere, even infrared. You can track these ships.
“OPEC says our quota is two million barrels a day or more. What are we doing? We are doing less than a million barrels. We must have to deal with that supply side.
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“I went to the office of the Chief of Naval Staff. He had this screen in his office. He could see Takwa Bay, see that. And I said to him, ‘Sir, I didn’t know that you had all this. That means we can track this and that. So, what’s the real problem?’
“He said there is no linkage between us and NNPC. So, we don’t know what NNPC is doing. Who is telling us this type of story? It’s one country, one president, and then the left-hand does not know what the right hand is doing, and you expect us to swallow that?” he queried.
Senator Abaribe, a major critic of the then President Muhammadu Buhari administration, at which time he was Senate Minority Leader recalled when he was arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) years back before the advent of the National Identification Number (NIN). According to him, the security police tracked him using his mobile phone.
“When I was arrested in front of a barber’s shop in Abuja. One of the DSS directors was interrogating me, and I was bantering with him and I asked him how they knew where I was because I was driving myself in a small car. He said, ‘We just used your phone to track you’.
“There was no NIN then. Now every phone has a NIN; there was no BVN, and now every bank account has a BVN. And then some people demand a ransom of N20m, and the money is paid into an account, and then the security people tell you they are unable to track the kidnappers.
“There is just some collusion going on, and there is no concerted effort to deal with it. It’s just more or less like a sense of malaise; everyone says not my problem, not my issue,” Senator Abaribe said.
In January, seven members of a family, including six sisters, were kidnapped in the Bwari area of Abuja, and the kidnappers demanded about N100 million as ransom. One of the victims, Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar, was killed while the others regained their freedom.
Commenting on the development, a f had said security agents weren’t using the NIN to track kidnappers and other elements engaging in nefarious activities.
While reacting to the statement credited to the former Minister of Communications & Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, that security agencies have not been using the NIN technology he championed, ex-Presidential Aide, Laolu Akande said it is disturbing that none of the security agencies have debunked what the ex-Minister said.
In his reaction, the former Senate Minority Leader averred that security challenges can be solved with the enforcement of penalties.
“If you are responsible for something and you don’t do it, you pay the penalty for it. If you have to go to jail, you go to jail. If that happens and somebody sees that you are a leader who is able to crack head for the rest of the polity, you will see a change.
“The basic problem is that there is no penalty for malfeasance, no penalty for not doing the job that is given to someone,” he said.
