 Civil society calls for the investigation of the Nigerian Navy officials allegedly involved in theft of over 8,000 barrels of crude oil and rift in adobe governments gets messier as deputies governor seeks court protection from governor of Bataki. This is plus politics, I am Mary Anna Cole. A non-governmental organization center for public accountability has called on the chief of naval staff vice admiral Emmanuel O'gala to launch investigation into allegations of involvement of its officers in crude oil theft. A vessel allegedly carrying crude oil suspected to have been stolen was intercepted in the Kokor area of Delta State by the Ternita security services. The 1,117 tonne vessel carrying about 8,100 barrels of crude was escorted by some naval officers before it was reportedly intercepted on Wednesday. According to the Ternita operatives upon entrance into the ship they noticed that the vessel was authorized to carry product by the Navy but did not have any approvals from the Nigerian midstream and downstream petroleum regulatory authority. The authority responsible for the regulation of midstream and downstream petroleum operations in Nigeria for the said voyage. May rather Navy in a statement by its director of information Commodore A.O.I. Yovan opposed the motion that the vessel was acting without authorization. The Ternita security outfit is a private security company owned by government in Kemopolo, popularly called Tompolo, as ex-Niger Delta agitator who recently signed a contract with the federal government to protect the oil pipelines. Joining us to discuss this is Olufemi Lawson, his executive director, Center for Public Accountability. Thank you so much for joining us Mr. Lawson. Good. Let's start by the finger-pointing first and foremost. It seems the Navy is insisting that they did have authority to proceed with whatever the logistics were in taking the oil out of the country. Even though this private security company of government in Kemopolo, which is Tompolo's company, is insisting that there was no pass, there was no authorization by the downstream committee for them to carry this crude out of the country. Now I want to take you back to the campaign season, up until last year, December or I think November, the SDP presidential candidate, Prince Adebayo, had raised concerns about the oil theft in Nigeria and said, and I quote, that federal government was complicit. Is that where we are today? What we are seeing, you know, unfolding recently, clearly justifies a statement as such, as made by Prince Adebayo, and of course opinion of every other Nigerians, including the media and civil society, that the business of oil theft in the Niger Delta is not a business of the boys. It is not a business of the Jericam Chips. It is not a business of the local village boys in the creeks of the Niger Delta. It is an organized crime, guided by institutions that ordinarily should protect oil infrastructures in Nigeria. But unfortunately, the federal government has been looking the other way, chasing petty oil thieves and people who are involved in some form of small-scale burglary and leaving the main oil thieves alone to keep operating. If you actually know what it takes to put a vessel that can take about 10 tons of good oil on the waters in the creeks of the Niger Delta, then you know that you do not require the service of a magician to know that this is clearly an organized crime that has institutions of government been involved in it. And when you talk about the institutions of government, the Navy is a major institution that ordinarily, because of the nature of the service, should be in charge of the protection of our oil infrastructures in the country. Unfortunately, the country also came up with another institution that is the Niger Security and Civil Defence Corps, which has a constitutional statutory mandate of protecting critical national infrastructure, particularly the good oil pipeline where they bought. If you look at how the NCDC has been stifled over the years, particularly in the last few years, you understand that there are people somewhere who do not actually want people who can protect their national infrastructures to work so that they can continue the business of stealing. And for a country that is struggling economically like ours, today, Nigerians are going to be buying oil at about 600 naira. Salaries, a lot of states in Nigeria cannot pay salaries. A lot of national infrastructure projects have been abandoned because the country seemingly broke. But we have a very few people somewhere somehow exploiting the commonwealth of the people of Nigeria into their personal pocket, using the institutions of states, which ordinarily should be protecting these infrastructures. And that is where the role of the Navy came into play in this case. I'm so sorry. Before we go into the Navy, you just made a statement that, again, takes me back to Mr. President's latest address. He addressed the nation. I think it was last week talking about the situation of things and the removal of fuel subsidy. One of the first things that Mr. President did on the day that he was sworn in was to state that subsidy was gone. Now, for the average person, it sounded more like, well, this will put an end to the oil thefts, the problems that we're having in the oil and gas sector. Might I remind you that in a whole year, in a whole year, that's the past year, no monies were actually remitted into the coffers of the nation from oil, zero Naira. And 75 percent, according to statistics of our oil, is being illegally transported out of this country. The president did say that a small group of people are the ones who are responsible for the theft of oil in this country, even though he was shot of saying that these people, like you said, are using the instruments of state. So who are these people? Why is the government telling us instead of dealing with these people, if they know this group of people, if they know that these people are using the instruments of state? Why are they continuously telling us? Good luck, Jonathan, told us the same story. Former President Bahari told us the same story. Now our president is telling us the story. Why are they not dealing with this? As opposed to telling us, what are we supposed to do with this information? Well, I think the story is going to change with the current revelations. It is true that previous governments in Nigeria have failed. That is not contestable, because what has given birth to private security organizations like Tangita Security manning our oil infrastructure today is the failure of those institutions that should ordinarily protect our national, ordinarily we have no need engaging private security consultants to protect our national infrastructures. But because just like the president admitted, a very few people using the instrumentality of the state have hijacked the system to the extent that they now take away these resources, make money from it into their private pockets. And that is why I think what we have experienced in the last couple of weeks signifies that there may be a way out of this. Only a few weeks ago, one vessel was arrested with the help of the same private security firm Tangita Security Service, and the vessel was destroyed. Again, another vessel, not escorted by the Navy, but operated by other officers, according to the Tangita Security Service, have been arrested now. Now, it clearly tells you just like the president have said, that it is a business of the big man. People who ordinarily should protect infrastructures are now being engaged in sabotaging national economy. That means that there are revelations now and that steps have been taken. First, this will destroy, now second, this will arrest and detain. It means we may be on our way out of it, if the government can consistently support efforts that will ensure that more of these oil thieves are exposed and arrested. And beyond engaging private security firms to do this job, the national security institutions must be re-energized, must be restructured to the extent that they cannot do this job. Fantastic. The Nigerian military have been very good, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force. If there are elements within the Navy now, sabotaging the effort of government. What is needed is for the government to force these characters out, so that this system can work to the benefit of Nigeria. Like I said, if you look at the Nigeria Security Service and Civil Defence Fund, it has on a number of occasions arrested oil thieves. But when it arrests these oil thieves, you know, it does not take, that's the part to take them to God. In most cases, they are handed over to the U.S.C. or other prosecuting agencies. But where are those that have been arrested? How many of them are they sent to jail? How many of them who collaborated with officials who should not only be protected for such as have been exposed? So we need to encourage a system that will ensure that we begin to name and shame these thieves. And that is why personally is not so pleased by the fact that the NAVA authority said it is investigating this case. In this case, the NAVA authorities are on trial themselves. The Navy is on trial. It is going to require an independent, you know, inquiry to be considered by the federal government or possibly the Office of National Institute of Advisors to actually unravel the truth behind this latest arrest. It makes me question the 44 billion, if I'm not mistaken, contract that was given to a government to compolo. Yes, of course, he has 4 billion, I beg your pardon. He has somewhat delivered. But if these, his job is to protect the pipelines and then all he's doing is arrest people who have already stolen the crude. What does this say about his contract and his policing of these pipelines? Because again, I want to take you back to the fact that there was a special investigative panel on oil theft and losses and a report was submitted to the National Security Advisor at the time, Baba Ganamungunu. And they attributed, of course, what we're talking about here, to rack a tearing and lack of proper reporting of crude oil production and illegal refining. Now, again, Prince Adebayo had said that the kind of theft that we're experiencing in the oil sector is not something that some poor fire boys or some militants are capable of. It's high leveled. It's not something that, you know, it's not a few drums of oil. It's a high level of racketeering. Now, he did say, Baba Ganamungunu, and I want to quote him saying that during the assessment, the panel discovered several layers of involvement in illegal oil theft of crude oil and best efforts of the armed forces and other security agencies to combat the activities of oil theft. The panel also observed that crude oil losses arose from a lack of proper reporting of crude oil production, illegal refining, theft from wellheads and diversion from sophisticated pipelines. Again, I take you back to my previous question. If we have all of this information, why are we not going to the roots? Because these things are stated. They're in black and white. Many are talking about the political will. If we're talking about political will to deal with it, because you keep saying if government does this, if government does this, should we be talking about ifs or asking government to make sure that these things are done? Why is the political will to do this if government and their cronies allegedly have their hand also in the cookie jar? Well, you are very correct. And I will agree with you to the extent that there has never been the will to bring saboteurs to boo. And that is why despite a change in the administration of the country, these characters have continued in the business. And I think it is very unfortunate because until we begin to make an example of people who sabotage their national economy and interest who continue to have reports, even if you like bring the Navy, bring international security agents or the likes, who have reports of violent and other sabotage of national interest, just like the experience. But what I think the government must do differently this time is to show the readiness for transparency. And there can be no transparency when you begin to cover up people who have been found to have perpetrated crime against the country, not just against the administration. The theft of crude oil and every other sabotage experienced crime against Nigerians whose common words have been plundered by these very few insignificant, you know, mindless looters. So what do we have to do? And what I think must be done just like we are beginning to see being demonstrated by the new administration is the fact that there must be arrests at all times when there are cases or suspicion of theft. And processes of interrogating search and investigating search, experts must be transparent to the extent that Nigerians will see that the government is really serious about fighting this crime. And when such investigations are done, people must be prosecuted openly in the open courts so that it can serve as a deterrent to others who may be interested in doing taking time rounds. So clearly I agree with you in the past, the system has failed, government has failed, and why did government fail? If you look at the report in detail, you realize that a lot of persons in that tech, in this report, were people who were working for the government. And you cannot want to have this kind of character within the government and expect sanity or expect implementation of such reports that have exposed their crime. Thank you for leading me to my next question, interesting. Looking at the list of people that Mr. President has submitted to the floor of the National Assembly for ratification or, of course, claring, these are some people who have one way or the other been recycled. These are people who have been in government, who one way or the other might also have some things hanging over their head, especially issues of oil theft. And when you talk about the fact that these are the same people that have been fingered one way or another, with these people finding their way back into government, how will it be easy for the government of Tinnabu to deal with the said situation? Thank you very much. I think as Nigerians, we must not also only surrender our faith or how we want our country to become back into the hands of the president or these few people in the National Assembly, very correct. Oh, I'm so sorry. But these people came to us to ask for our vote, to work for us, to serve us. And so, of course, a chunk of the duties are in their hands. We cannot in any way look over them and say, oh, well, we can't leave everything to them. But that's their duty. They asked for the job. And their job is to make sure that things change. So I don't agree with you that we shouldn't just leave it to them. It's their job. Yes. But at every given time, at every given time, we must make them understand that they are servants of the people. We must stop elevating them above the people. We must make them understand that it is beyond their appointment. Even those who have used one means or the other to find their way into making the Federal Executive Council this or every other appointment in government, we must understand that it doesn't end there. We must, we have seen situations, situations in this country where the media have played critical role in exposing people who got into office using forged fake documents, who have pejorged in the past and even eight months after the appointment, they were removed from office. So we must continue to do the same to the extent that even if the President have wrongfully engaged anyone into the service of the government, we must sustain our demand for transparency and accountability to the extent that such cases are shown the way out of office even after they must have been appointed or when they are not performing the duties as suspected by Nigerians. So we must look at it beyond the fact that they have been appointed or screened or cleared by very few people to the extent that if it's about our destiny as Nigerians, I will must sustain the demand for transparency and accountability. You know civil society now because you see I was talking to a few people about how the place of civil society in Nigeria and many have said that civil society now goes to the highest bidder including our labour groups and I don't necessarily want to agree with that in totality but is there a reason why people think that civil society and labour are not doing their job or have jettisoned their responsibility because of bias or you know being bought over by the government in power? No I don't want to agree with people who hold such opinion. In every society, even among the disciples you know in the Christian religion and for our Lord Jesus Christ, there's 12 people and there was a Judas. So talk about you know issues that have to do with millions of people. In every society there will always be elements who can you know who are ready for trade, who are ready to compromise their conscience and their belief but in any way I don't want to agree that the labour of the society have been compromised. There are elements within every sector including the religious organizations that have been compromised. It happens in every society but still Nigeria still has a formidable labour movement. Nigeria still has a formidable civil society movement that is still living up to the expectation of you know monitoring and checking the excesses of government. And so for those who hold the opinion that because of the new order that the civil society is already bought, the labour is compromised, I'm not of that opinion, there are lots of civil society organizations, three fantastic works to ensure that this country is run in a transparent and accountable manner. There are a lot of people within the labour movement to be who are ready to sacrifice it all to ensure that the right welfare of the workers in Nigeria are protected. So people may hold their opinion but just have the general perception of who we are as Nigerians or who we are as labour leaders or civil society you know leaders. Shut term and long term because we can't keep talking about the problems and not seek solutions and I like to talk about what we can do in the interim while we wait for the long-term plans to mature. So in the short term let's start with that how do we deal with this situation because the more crude we lose the more money we're losing and the worse our economy becomes and we've seen that all prices have crashed and some what's tried to stabilize again our economy is facing the hardest hit downturn ever and you know of course we're being told every other day to tighten our belt until probably we no longer have what to tie the belts around. So what do we do in the interim? Moving forward the government must show its willingness to deal with this situation by ensuring that whoever is found culpable or being involved in a right term and every form of criminality is brought to go. This particular process has to be investigated to the extent that whoever has been found to have compromised the process is exposed. Number two government must invest in national security particularly those institutions that are empowered to protect our critical national infrastructures. I want to especially use this opportunity to appreciate the mayor and officers of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps they have been doing a lot of fantastic work as far as the protection of critical infrastructures the oil pipeline and despite their very limited you know capacity and resources and that is why you know the current leadership of the Corps you know was recommended. So government need to encourage institutions like this the civil defence you know another paramilitary and military organizations to the extent that the welfare of their personnel and training and everything is taken care of so that they will not be willing to compromise the work that they have been you know mandated to do. But what about what about the already compromised guys what about the guys who taste it money from ill-gotten wealth what happens to those people because interesting what about synergy across the boards for these security agencies because again I do remember at some point when Governor Wike raised former Governor Wike raised the alarm about you know security agencies being in cahoots with these all thefts all thieves I beg your pardon he mostly fingered the NSCDC and of course the Naval Police and this is not news per se of course because the Navy is now involved in this in Broglio but then as much as you applaud the NSCDC and you know say that they're doing their best how do we get a synergy of sorts among all of these security agencies at least for between the ones who maybe have not necessarily tested the monies from these ill-gotten wealth but how do we make sure that that happens so that there's you know some form of joint efforts to make sure that we put an end to this dastardly act yeah thank you very much the best way out of this is to ensure that these agencies work together towards achieving one's objective of protecting our national infrastructures particularly preventing oil change in the most circumstances we find these organizations working across purpose never going one direction the you know the even in this same Niger that they say there's a joint past forms of pricing of the civil difference the Navy the you know but those ones are working in another direction so government must ensure that these agencies are brought together to work together and you know specific mandates are given to those institutions that have primary responsibilities like the civil defense like the Navy why they are being supported by other you know organizations like the Army you know the Air Force when needed the police when necessary so that they work together pursuing the same objective so that we don't find JTF working in one direction civil defense working the other direction Navy working on the other direction so the government must ensure that they come together to work in the overall interest of the society and that is one way we can meet this spirituality in the board all right well Ulufa Milas and is the Executive Director Center for Public Accountability always a pleasure to have you here advocating for stuff like this thank you so much for speaking with us all right well we'll take a quick break when we return we'll be discussing the rifts between the ados state governor and his deputy and all that's been happening stay with us