The recent incident where a supertanker came to Akpo field and escaped with three million barrels of crude oil from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea hit the newsstand with a bang.
A number of Nigerians could not believe such a thing could happen without highly placed government, oil companies’ officials, and even security agencies knowing it.
Fortunately, the ship was intercepted in Equatorial Guinea.
Apart from the tanker that was arrested there may be other tankers that also engaged in similar activity.
One thing is certain, that is, this activity may have been going on for some time without much attention paid to it in the past by the government and the media. This has emboldened the criminals to continue to do it.
Stealing of crude oil continues to take place because there is usually no targeted or strategically directed noise or alarm raised whenever these incidents occur. Perhaps we should employ some tactics, using specific incidents like this to advise or demand specific actions that must be taken by the authorities, technical actions that must be taken towards solving the problem. In this case, we can proffer the following punitive and corrective actions:
1. Seizure and forfeiture of the cargo, as prescribed in the relevant regulations.
2. Proceeds from the sale of the crude oil so forfeited should be paid into a Special Account at the CBN.
3. The JV Partner should face additional penalties, as stated in the regulations, including forfeiture of the specific operating license, in this case, OML containing AKPO Field.
4. The CEOs of the companies mentioned in any case involving crude oil theft should be arraigned before a special tribunal that should be established for oil theft crimes
5. The field supervisors from the various regulatory agencies should also be made to face a Tribunal.
6. Should the Pirate Ship be allowed to run away, the Commanding Officer of the Naval Command responsible for the area should be arraigned also.
7. The Crew of the Pirate Tanker should be treated as pirates and should also be tried
8. The trespassing tanker should be sold off by the government. The proceeds should go into the Special CBN Account, which must be audited at least twice a year, and the audit report thereof published.
9. Periodically, Funds in the Special Account shall be distributed 75% to the Federation Account, and 25% to Community Restoration and Infrastructure Development Account, also domiciled at the CBN.
Other measures deemed appropriately effective may be taken if required:
1. NUPRC, NMDPRA, and NAPIMS should acquire Lloyd Register GPS Monitoring and Surveillance Technology
2. A permanent joint committee between NGO and government agencies should be established so that it can work with the relevant communities and also assist clean-up agencies, and also support officially dedicated security forces.
3. A Special Dedicated Force with relevant training and armed with modern lethal arms and communications and surveillance logistics, should be established to control and eventually terminate all environmentally debilitating activities.
Other measures deemed appropriate to check and terminate crude oil theft should include the establishment of a security force that is substantially staffed through the employment of youths from the Communities, male and female.
4. The Press shall be embedded in both the Civil Consultative JV Body and in the Special Security Force.
5. The Oil Company Operators shall be compulsorily engaged in permanent community infrastructure development continually according to the approved 5-year master plan for their respective communities. Appropriate regulatory operational guidelines should be developed regionally or nationally. The objective of this is to end past unserious and ineffective development promises.
6. Any other appropriate interventional solutions.
7. The Gulf of Guinea Institute, GGI, at the African University of Science and Technology, AUST, was specifically chartered to develop Regional Cooperative Security Initiatives for problems such as this. Academic Intellectual Policy Framework may be effective in developing a Global Solution to this vexing problem of Piracy of our regional natural resources by organized criminal elements from anywhere.
Engr. B. A. Soyode