Illegal pipeline: Edwin Clark seeks probe, says oil theft has been occurring for 50 years

Edwin Clark, an Ijaw national leader, says the lingering oil theft in the Niger Delta has been occurring for about 50 years.

Clark said this on Monday, at a news conference in Abuja.

Last week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had said oil theft in the country started over 20 years ago.

“Oil theft in the country has been going on for over 22 years but the dimension and rate it assumed in recent times is unprecedented,” Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), NNPCL, had said.

But the Niger Delta leader said the menace started long before that time.

“Although the NNPCL thinks these have been going on in the past 20 years, some of us have always insisted that this oil theft has been going on for much longer, for about 50 years,” he said.

Clark, speaking on the recently-detected illegal connection on the Trans Escravos, said investigation into the matter must be transparent and comprehensive if government agencies were sincere about unravelling the situation.

“My attention and that of the entire country have been drawn to the recent discovery of a large scale and sophisticated oil theft machinery going on at the deep swamps at Yokri, close to the Forcados terminal in Delta,” he said.

“According to reports, high powered technological engineering expertise is applied to steal crude oil from the Forcados line.

“This is transported through a four-kilometre pipeline to a platform in the sea, which belongs to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and its partners.

“According to NNPC, this is part of the 470 thousand barrels of crude oil that is being lost every month, amounting to $700 million.

“What is going on is a sophisticated criminal act, carried out by a syndicate.”

Clark added that the discovery of the illegal four kilometers pipeline — through which crude oil was being siphoned — showed that oil theft was being perpetuated by criminal mafias, with the connivance of some officials in the oil industry.

He said the investigation must uncover all government officials involved in the act, including top officials of the NNPC and their collaborators.

According to him, such perpetrators have caused a huge amount of harm to the country and to the Niger Delta communities.

“It is dangerously incredible that crude oil theft, in spite of all the securities around, has assumed wider dimension to the extent that the quantity of crude oil we export today is less than the quantity being stolen by a gang of thieves of various designations,” Clark said. 

He further called on the federal government to institute a judicial inquiry to investigate oil theft.