A former militant leader in the Niger Delta, Asari Dokubo, on Friday, blamed the military officers of perpetrating 90 per cent of crude oil theft in the Niger Delta.
Dokubo, who spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu in Abuja, accused them of complicity in the oil theft in the Niger Delta.
According to him, the Nigerian Army and Navy know the people behind economic sabotage in the region.
He further accused the military of intimidating the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) operatives deployed to protect oil pipelines in the Niger Delta.
The ex-militant leader, however, assured President Tinubu of his total support in the efforts to curb oil theft in the country.
Oil theft has been identified by industry experts and other concerned individuals as one of the biggest threats to Nigeria’s economy with 619.7 million barrels of oil per day valued at $46 billion or N16.25 trillion stolen by criminals from 2010 to 2020.
Dokubo said: “The army and the navy intimidate the civil defence who are by status, the people who are supposed to guard these pipelines.
“They receive a lot of money from NNPCL and the IOCs and just across the corner, you will see a houseboat a few meters from the houseboat, you will see an oil bunkering refinery or tapping directly from oil well ends. It is very pathetic now.
“The military is at the centre of oil theft and we have to make this very clear to the Nigerian public that 99 percent of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military, the army and the navy especially.
“What is happening in the Niger Delta in the past eight years was unprecedented in the history of oil production anywhere in the world.
“The vandals do not only attack the pipelines, they have migrated from the pipeline and have gone directly to the oil wealth heads and they take directly from the oil wealth heads.
“They set up haphazard facilities they call local refineries and artisanal refineries, this is a crime against humanity because the livelihood of the people is being totally destroyed.”
