BREAKING NEWS, Oil & Gas
–
President Muhammadu Buhari while in Beijing, China, assures Nigerian community that he will end the era of pipeline vandalism
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Apr 25, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE issue of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft is a perennial issue that successive government in the country had failed to tackle. But with the latest statement created to President Muhammadu Buhari on how to fight vandals, the hope of ending the menace has been renewed.
Buhari told Nigerian community in Beijing, China, that the full weight of the law would be unleashed on them should they continue in their nefarious acts. President Buhari said the fate of the Boko Haram insurgents in the hands of the Nigerian armed forces would be their lot. He said he would not relent in the fight against corruption. According to him, corruption is an arch-enemy of the nation, which has destroyed the lives of many Nigerians.
He said: “I ask for your support to make our vision of stamping out corruption a reality in the shortest possible time. Whoever is caught will not be spared. The government is still being dared, but those who are sensible should have learned a lesson. Those who are mad, let them continue in their madness. I am aware that in the last two weeks, the national grid collapsed a number of times. I hope this message will reach the vandals and saboteurs who are blowing up pipelines and installations. We will deal with them the way we dealt with Boko Haram.”
President Buhari assured the Nigerian community that the federal government was working very hard to overcome current national challenges and deliver on its promise of a better Nigeria. He said decades of damage can’t be repaired overnight.
“Clearly, our vision of a diversified and inclusive economy will not be achieved overnight. The many decades of damage and destruction cannot be repaired overnight. The reform programme we are implementing is not because oil prices are below $45 per barrel today. It is because when oil prices were over $100 per barrel, majority of Nigerians were still suffering. They were simply forgotten and left behind. So, our reforms are to ensure that the majority of Nigerians are not left behind.”
Vandalisation and crude oil theft has caused untold hardship to Nigerians. The resultant effects of these nefarious acts are inadequate gas for the power plants, scarcity of electricity, untimely lost of lives, among others. These issues made the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, on February 21, to call on the federal government to impose tougher penalties against petroleum pipelines vandals.
Tokunbo Korodo, South-West Chairman of NUPENG, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, alleged that some known vandals would walk the streets freely two months after arrest, adding that such scenario was ridiculous. Korodo said that such vandals would begin to threaten those that tipped off relevant authorities to arrest them.
“As the chairman of NUPENG South-West, I have led a team to arrest pipeline vandals but when I realised that after few months, those vandals will come back as freemen, I withdrew. They used to come and meet me and would say: Chief, we know where your children are schooling; we know your wife’s shop; if you leak our secret again, we will kidnap them.”
Even the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan was frustrated as a result of constant pipeline vandalisation which prevented the administration from providing steady power supply to Nigerians as it promised. Chinedu Nebo, former minister of power had said the activities of vandals were aimed at frustrating the efforts of President Jonathan to provide electricity to Nigerians.
He called on Nigerians to cooperate with government in the fight against vandalism. The minister said that over 200 cases of gas pipelines vandalism were recorded in 2014. Nebo stressed that there was no justifiable individual benefit to gas pipeline vandalism other than sabotage. He attributed the significant economic loss and insufficient power supply in the country to gas infrastructure vandalism and crude oil theft. The minister said that 81 percent of power in the country was generated by thermal plants dependent on gas supply.
With President Buhari’s pronouncement, Nigerians and indeed the international oil companies, IOCs, are waiting to see how the president would tackle vandals in the Niger Delta areas and those at the Arepo and Ikorodu axis.
|
Tags:
