Navy Spat Indication of a Failing State | Tantita by Odiawa Ai

Moving allegations and counter-allegations between the Nigerian Navy and Tantita Security Services, a private company employed to aid rid the Niger Delta of oil theft in a joint effort with the security agencies, compactly capture the wantonness in Nigeria’s oil industry and governance. The Navy accuses Tantita, owned by Government Ekpemupolo, a former militant leader, of conspiring with hoodlums to steal crude oil off the coast of Ondo State. Tantita countered that some Navy personnel were aboard the MT VINNALARIS 1 when it was accosted at Awoye. This episode showcases Nigeria as a failing state, whose government has lost control.

The allegations are muddled. According to Navy spokesman, Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan, it captured the vessel with 15,000 metric tonnes capacity, following an intelligence report that it was illegally stacking crude oil. At that point, Ayo-Vaughan said it had stolen 500MT. It blamed the theft on Tantita since that location is within the company’s coverage area.

On its part, Tantita made sense of the fact that the vessel was intercepted by a combined team of soldiers, Tantita, and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps operatives, but said the Navy refused to give up the vessel for a joint inspection. Tantita, which has a pipeline insurance contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, said it had sent visual evidence of the episode to the NNPC. Therefore, the NNPC must come out openly on this.

The economy is wobbling halfway because of the industrial scale oil theft in the Niger Delta. The immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, once said Nigeria was losing 700,000 barrels per day to theft. During a recent visit to the Niger Delta, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, said theft stayed at 400,000bpd, raddressing a deficiency of $4 million everyday.

For a nation that is broke and indebted, and reeling under a forex shortage crisis, the spillage is severely damaging. Between 2009 and 2020, NEITI said Nigeria lost N16.25 trillion to oil theft.

More terrible, Nigeria cannot meet its OPEC-assigned production quota of 1.78 million bpd, recording just 1.35mbpd production in October. Rather than annihilating oil theft, successive administrations offer empty talk to it and resort to borrowing. Conversely, oil thieves cart away 5,000bpd and 10,000bpd in Mexico, the second elevated casualty of oil theft globally behind Nigeria. In Indonesia, oil theft hovers between 2,000bpd and 3,000bpd.

Subsequently, the NNPC cannot fulfill the demands of homegrown refiners, including the 650,000bpd Dangote Refinery, its own 445,000bpd treatment facilities (if they were to be in operation), the upcoming 200,000bpd BUA Refinery and other modular processing plants. Refined petrol imports hurt the economy.

Stakeholders, including Nyesom Wike, former Rivers’ governor and incumbent FCT Minister, and ex-militant, Asari Dokubo, have blamed the military and police of abetting oil theft. Strangely, the Navy has resorted to quickly burning vessels suspected of oil theft, annihilating proof that can be used to capture the barons. Disappointingly, the Bola Tinubu administration tolerates this tragedy.

The scale of oil theft in Nigeria is unpardonable. With technology, Saudi Arabia effectively monitors every drop of oil throughout its domain from a command centre.

Obviously, official complicity aids the theft in Nigeria. The magnitude of the spillage signifies state failure. Tinubu ought to arrest this grave assault on national sovereignty. The President should overhaul the tactical operations in the Niger-Delta, root out all the personnel currently deployed there, and replace them with personnel, who ought to be there only for short periods, and closely monitored.