Although the crude theft vessel has been destroyed, perpetrators should be prosecuted.
Everyday for the thief, one day for the owner’. This time-tested cliche is true of the vessel, MT Tura II (IMO number: 6620462), arrested on July 7 by Messrs. Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd, with about 150,000 metric tonnes of stolen crude oil valued at about $86.8million. Tantita Security Ltd., a private security contractor engaged by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is owned by former militant leader, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo. The vessel, said to be owned by a Nigerian registered company, Holab Maritime Services Limited, with registration number RC813311, was heading to Cameroun with the cargo when it was intercepted. It was alleged to have been in the illicit business for about 12 years.
Garba Muhammad, NNPCL’s spokesman, said in a statement that the vessel was apprehended at an offshore location at latitude 5.8197194477543235° and longitude 4.789002723991871°, with the captain and 12 other crew members on board. Neither the vessel nor its content, said to have been sourced illegally from a well jacket offshore Ondo State, had any valid documentation.
It is an open secret that some highly influential Nigerians as well as international oil companies (IOCs) are into this illicit business of crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region. Given the scope of their operations, it is not a job for minions. This much was confirmed by a retired deputy comptroller of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and vice-chairman, Senate Committee on Customs and Excise in the 9th Senate, Francis Fadahunsi. ”Some international oil companies and highly influential Nigerians are behind the crude oil theft in Nigeria. It did not start today; the practice has been on for a long time.
“Unfortunately, the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is doing nothing spectacular to stop the theft”, Fadahunsi said. He added that “Each of the affected IOCs has separate channels with which they are siphoning crude to waiting vessels on the high seas with the active connivance of the military and security operatives saddled with the responsibility of protecting the nation’s oil assets.”
The arrest of MT Tura 11 should signal a radical departure from the past where government officials only made pious commitment to rid the country of the menace of crude theft.
“The illegal trade of stolen crude oil not only inflicts significant economic losses on Nigeria and legitimate stakeholders in the oil industry, but also perpetuates a cycle of corruption, environmental devastation, and social instability”, the statement by Muhammad said.
Former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva said last year that Nigeria loses about 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily to oil thieves. The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) early this year disclosed that the country lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at N16.25trn ($46.16bn) between 2009 and 2020 to oil theft. This is huge.
One would have thought that these economic losses would have prodded successive governments to go after these rogue elements with all the might they could muster, to put a stop to their illegal activities. But no. Rather, government officials only wringed their hands in frustration as if they did not know what to do to stem the tide.
We commend Tantita Security Ltd for a sting operation clinically executed. The company’s executive director, technical and operations, Captain Warredi Enisuoh, said, they had been monitoring the activities of the vessel for long before apprehending it, sequel to the credible intelligence they got about its activities. He added that the vessel had once been arrested for the same crime but disappeared in mysterious circumstances. “We are here with the same vessel committing the same atrocity”. Apparently the greed of the criminals involved in this business ended up being their nemesis. Imagine just one illicit business that would have fetched the perpetrators a whopping $86.8m! Imagine the number of times they would have operated, either without being caught or being caught but later left off the hook, and how much they must have made from their past operations? But that is usually the way of criminals, particularly those whose activities fetch them huge pecuniary gains. They are like Oliver Twist: they always crave for more.
Of course, it was this insatiable quest for more illicit money that made them enter into the high seas again when they were arrested. Unfortunately, it was in the process that Tantita Security Ltd. discovered that the vessel had switched off its Automatic Infraction System (AIS), following a lead from NNPCL Control Centre. Since this was not the usual procedure, indeed it was a crime to switch off the AIS, it was easy to give the vessel away as the law breaker that it is.
Now that MT Tura 11 had been arrested and burnt, that at least is one down for the oil thieves. But that cannot be the end of the story. As a matter of fact, it should be the beginning of a thorough investigation to get to the root of the matter. Government officials had been talking in abstract terms on this issue. Yes, Nigerians know that their crude was being stolen while their governments looked on helplessly. It was as if the criminals were invincible.
The arrested crew members in the vessel should be able to help unravel the mystery behind crude theft. Many questions are begging for answers. Perhaps the media too has a role to play at this point. Nigeria has for long walked on the dark path with regard to crude theft. The arrest of MT Tura 11 should illuminate that dark path.
Who were those responsible for the disappearance of the vessel on the at least two occasions we were told it was arrested in the past? They must be apprehended no matter how highly placed and wherever they are, irrespective of whether they are still in service or they have retired. The nation needs them to tell us under what circumstances the vessel disappeared. A vessel of that size is not a needle or speed boat that can just disappear without trace.
However, much as Nigerians are happy that a major oil thieves cartel has been busted, they cannot be happy that this feat took a private security concern to achieve. Where is the Nigerian Navy, the major security agency in charge of the country’s territorial waters, in all of these? That the Nigerian Navy is completely out of contention in this major haul is, to say the least, distressing. As the National Operations Controller, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Mike Osatuyi, observed, “It’s an indictment on the Navy as far as I am concerned.”
What we are saying in essence is that the new military chiefs already have their jobs cut out for them. They must realise that, as far as Nigerians are concerned, these kinds of illegal activities cannot be carried out without the active connivance of some of their personnel. Many Nigerians who should know have said this much and there is nothing for the military authorities to defend in this. The onus is now on them to change the narrative. They now have a golden opportunity to weed out the bad eggs in their midst so that their unpatriotic activities would not continue to tar the image of the entire armed forces with mud. If the military decides today that this kind of economic sabotage would no longer be condoned, the perpetrators would look for other things to do.
Meanwhile, we appreciate the concern of people who felt the vessel and its content should not have been destroyed. May be they have a point. But those who took the decision to burn them also have their reason. As they claimed, there is the need to send a strong message to investors who might want to toe the line of MT Tura 11 that such is the fate that awaits them. According to Muhammad: “Details of this arrest and the outcomes of the investigations were escalated to the appropriate government authorities, upon which it was concluded to destroy the vessel to serve as a strong warning and deterrent to all those participating in such illegal activities to cease and desist.”
Enisuoh too applauded the “swift decision” to destroy the vessel.
Moreover, the vessel is not a first offender. Twice it had been caught and twice it had escaped in mysterious circumstances. As a matter of fact, it was in order to avert a repeat of such disappearance that the military and NNPCL as well as other stakeholders on ground at the time the vessel was arrested agreed that it must be burnt on the spot and this was done despite the Navy’s alleged request that the vessel be handed over to them for destruction. The decision not to release the vessel to the Navy as demanded is commendable. Once beaten’, they say, ‘twice shy’. The vessel’s disappearance on the two occasions it had earlier been apprehended was said to have happened while it was in the custody of the Nigerian Navy. So, there is no sense in having a third experience of such mysterious disappearance.
MT Tura 11’s arrest must not go the way of other arrested crude vessels in the country. The Bola Tinubu administration must show that it is really different by ensuring that crude theft is reduced to the barest minimum, if not eliminated. Crude robbery must be killed before it kills the country.
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