Falana unveils scale of government involvement in oil theft in Nigeria

Admin l Thursday, September 29, 2022

 

ABUJA, Nigeria – Foremost human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN has unveiled the scale of government involvement in oil theft and oil smuggling in Nigeria.

Falana who was speaking at a retreat organized by the Labour Party, said Nigeria remains the only  oil producing  country where government will say the country is losing $700 million  everyday because of oil theft.

“Who are the oil thieves, they know them.  Oil theft, oil smuggling all have official backing”, he said emphatically.

Besides, he added that Nigeria remains the only oil producing country, that has not acquired Crude Oil Metering Skid that will enable you to know how much oil Nigeria is producing daily.

“Nigeria is the only country that has refused to acquire that metre”, he said.

Furthermore, he explained that there is an organization called Lloyd, adding that Nigeria subscribed to that body, NNPC subscribed to that body.

“That body knows and has record of all ships that load  what to any part of the world. Nigeria has access to that body, yet we are told we don’t know who is stealing our oil and where the oil is being taking to”, Falana queried.

But he made more revelation that will send shivers down your spines. “Now we did a study, January  2011 to December 2014, we discovered and we made the information available to government, one port, Philadelphia Port, the oil that left Nigeria  and discharged in that country, the difference between what was recorded here and what was recorded there was 62.5 million barrels of crude oil valued at $12.7 billion, just one port”, Falana said.

He added, so “if you take 20 ports in America, 20 in China, United Kingdom and France you will know what we are talking about. So, the govt knows, and if they want information we can make it available to government if they are actually looking for those who are stealing and smuggling our oil”, he said.

He explained further, stressing  that in 2022 budget,  the President Muhammadu Buhari led  govt claimed “we are going to spend N443 billion on so called fuel subsidy,  by June Buhari a supplementary budget to the National Assembly increased the N443 billion to N4 trillion, there was no debate by the National Assembly.

“They passed it, now Zainab Ahmed,  the Minister of Finance is saying that before the end of this year that N4 trillion, will go to N6.5 trillion and that therefore in the budget of next year there may be no money for capital project, therefore I challenge Labour  in particular that we must get to the root of this criminality once and for all”, he said.