Oil thieves: Between mythology and mythic

“Watin we no go yie for Niaja sef. Wich wan bi oil thief thief”. As humurous as the above may sound, it represents the outburst of millions of Nigerians. It Resonates with what the legendary afrobeat Fela Anikulapo Kuti refers to “as government magic”.

Curiously, the prevailing state of the Nigerian oil and gas environment and management is considered to be enmeshed in corruption, environmental degradation, human right abuses and violent enterprise.
If one may ask, what is oil theft or what is oil theft all about?

According to some scholars, oil theft is considered to be the “illegal appropriation of crude or refined oil products from the pipelines of multinational oil companies”.

Interestingly, in the case of Nigeria, stakeholders in the oil and gas sector view this development as a “facilitated and pragmatic co-operation between security forces, militia organidations, the local population, and oil company employees. Who use a variety of methods to steal oil from the multinational oil corporations that are stationed within the country”.

For a country like ours that 90% of government revenue income depends on petroleum products, oil theives and their colloborators have escalate the challenges of the country, especially
as the nation still is sleeping over her progression from a non oil export economy to petro dollar export.

Sadly, Oil theft phenomenon is getting worse by the day with no solution in sight. Worse still, oil theft often serve some criminals as means of surviving and relevance.

The recent alarm by federal government over the rising rate of crude oil theft in the Niger Delta is indeed worrisome. Government disclosed that about “$3.27 billion worth of oil has been lost to vandalism in the past 14 months”.

This kind of news is not new to Nigerians, considering that successive governments have all failed to tame the menace.

The 2021 Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audit report that indicated that in 2018, 53.28 million barrels of crude oil were stolen. Similarly, in 2019 alone Nigeria lost 42.25 million barrels of crude oil valued at $2.77 billion to thieves.


A the end of 2021, 193 million barrels of crude worth $3.5 billion diaappeared without a trace
from Nigeria.

Regrettably, all stolen crude is valued in millions of dollars yet managers of the nation’s economy can have a rethink on security governance of that sector.

All we read is the federal government has identified a three-element solution to ending oil theft in Nigeria as reported in the media recently. The Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, said, “There are three- element to the solution of the problem – the communities must be involved, the security agencies as law enforcement agents of the government must be involved, and the operating companies must also be involved.”

We can’t agree less with the minister on the involvement of this three critical stakeholders.The questions that beg for answer is, are the three elements ready to end this gold mine venture that is milking the nation dry and enriching some unscrupulous individuals and groups?

The prevailing situation is pathetic as the NEITI report exposed the rots, estimated value of stolen crude oil running into billions of naira with an average loss of about 200,000 barrels per day.

The NEITI audit report fundamentally points out that the official lack of federal oversight and a large network of corruption fuel oil theft over the years. And this comes primarily with frequent collaboration between a variety of random criminal players depending on the level of oil theft being committed.

Community, security personnel and oil workers including consultants play specific role in the oil theft menace in Nigeria. Stolen crude oil is illegal wealth, which compounds our environmental degradation through through illegal refining.

The striking thing is to remind the government about the inter-ministerial committee on the recovery of crude oil and illegally refined petroleum products task force it set up in 2021.

Most crude oil losses occur in places like Bonny Terminal Network, Forcados Terminal Network and Brass Terminal Network.


Interestingly, members of the inter-ministerial committee on the recovery of crude oil and illegally refined petroleum products in the Niger Delta region comprises the Nigerian Army, Navy, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and others as backup to the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA).

Yet, oil theives made away with over 193 million barrels of crude oil estimated at $3.5 billion in 14 months. Nevertheless, we cannot rule out undercurrent factors aiding oil theft activities as: the worsening economic challenges, inadequate security surveillance, neglect of host communities and engagements, dilapidated oil facilities and stakeholders’ sabotages.

What needs to be done, how do we eliminate or at least reduce the menace of oil theives?

First, government must drop the opaqueness that characterises the Nigeria state. Nobody trusts the government on any issues talkless of convincing the people about oil theives or oil theft. And this requires both political will and being economically truthful to tackle the problem headlong.

Second, there is the need for a proper documentation mechanism to monitor and evaluate the figures of barrels of crude oil Nigeria explores and volume sold as export or locally refined.

Third, due to decay in the country’s pipeline network the introduction of technology such as Robotic Al, digital satelite, drones and other electronic monitoring gadgets would help a lot.

These initiatives, although suggested in the past but jettisoned on the excuse to award pipelines security contracts to repentant militants, must not be neglected. This is moreso as technology would mitigate pipeline vandalism and deter sabotage against critical oil infrastructure.

Fourth, the government officials saddled with the responsibility of apprehending oil theives must be people of integrity that are not ready to compromise. For this to work, they must be subjected to integrity test, sign the code of conduct and go through EFCC, NSA and DSS scrutiny.

Fifth, the problem in the international oil market also compounds the menace of crude oil theft. How much of advocacy is being done to stop crude oil theft is very crucial. Hence, it is the reason Nigeria cannot meet its crude oil production quota and benefit from high oil prices. And for us, we believe that the Nigerian state has a responsibility to lead this campaign going forward.

Nonetheless, it is very difficuit to convince Nigerians that truly oil thieves exist. Although, it could be a mythology and mythic, but the sector bleeds.

Olamilekan writes via
Email:[email protected],
08107407870, 08073814436