By Edith Ike-Eboh and Emmanuel Afonne
The weekly activities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) started with a move by President Muhammadu Buhari to end crude oil theft in the country.
To this end, Buhari ordered the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva and the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, to halt the worsening state of crude oil theft across the country.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Mr Gbenga Komolafe and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, were also told to join the fight against oil thieves.
Speaking during an assessment tour of the Niger Delta, Sylva described the perpetrators as criminals, and said that the deployment of top stakeholders by Buhari was to underscore the importance of the situation.
The minister said that the days of oil vandals and oil thieves were numbered as efforts would be intensified to stop their criminal activities.
He said that government would no longer afford these activities, assuring that stringent action would soon be taken against the criminal elements.
According to the minister, there are three elements to the solution of the extant problem, including the communities.
Sylva said that since the perpetrators were from communities, the host communities needed to be involved in finding a lasting solution to the menace.
He tasked all stakeholders, including the security agencies and the operating companies on the urgent need to take the president’s order seriously and bring the menace to an end.
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