Peter Akpatason, the deputy majority leader of the House of Representatives, has urged the federal government to employ all available resources to combat pipeline vandalism and oil theft, pointing out that these crimes are severely harming the country’s economy.
Former Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) President Akpatason bemoaned the government’s apparent lack of commitment to combating pipeline vandalism and oil theft.
“Oil theft, not just pipeline vandalism, is a big problem for the country,” he said. One minor facet of oil theft is vandalism. Vandalism is not the only way the country loses oil. Because the accounting process is purposefully manipulated to produce a record that differs from what is produced and exported, we lose oil. That is the main cause of crude loss, and the economy of the nation is being severely harmed.
He went on to say: “We are not sincere about protecting our pipelines because vandalism can be significantly reduced.” However, since the pipeline routes are so obvious, I do not now regard that as serious. Security agencies are familiar with all of them.
They occasionally purchase drones so they can keep an eye on the roads and proactively identify areas where vandalism is likely to occur.
“Unusual movements near the pipelines indicate that something is probably going to happen, but you can stop it.” Regretfully, that is not the case at the moment. Instead of taking proactive measures to stop it from happening, they frequently let it happen and then rush around to put out the fire.
