Nigeria’s Worse Nightmare; Pipeline Vandalism -By Onowugbeda Okeoghene Emmanuel

Illegal oil bunkering is an earth sapping vice with innumerable effects on the country, Nigeria and in fact, all of humankind. Problems posed by this menace ranges from lose of potential revenue of the country to a dent of the Nigerian image in the international scene hence the decreasing number and quality of investments in Nigeria. It’s one concept which has been a recurring enemy to the productive existence of the entity, Nigeria.

Culmination of the meaning of the word “bunkering” from leading websites like Merriam-Webstar, Oxford language and the Cambridge defies it as the “process of supplying fuel, provisions or necessities to a ship, especially in the maritime industry”. Illegal oil bunkering according to Wikepedia refers to the unlawful practice of stealing, smuggling and/or illegal refining petroleum products. It typically involves the unauthorised extraction, transportation or sale of crude oil, refined petroleum products or its by-products, by passing through illegal channels and involving criminal activities. From the above definition of Wikipedia, one can adduce that illegal bunkering of oil involves all the processes done from the collection of the crude oil to the actual refining and sale of the product. The only difference between oil bunkering and illegal oil bunkering is that while the former only applies to the legal processing and sale of crude oil, illegal oil bunkering, the latter entails several criminal activities such as pipeline vandalism, smuggling of crude oil products, tanker theft and oil adulteration.

Crude oil like any other natural resource is meant for the betterment of the host country’s economy.  This was meant to be the case when crude oil was first discovered in Olobiri, Bayelsa State in 1956. Although, the Olobiri account of the exploration of oil has been debunked by some eye witnesses during this particular event. This people claim that “Otuabagi” is the name of the village which crude oil was first discovered and “Olobiri” was the name of the district which Otuabagi was governed by.

Crude oil bunkering could take place in many forms which are Theft from pipelines, tanker hijacking, smuggling of goods, illegal refining and oil adulteration.

Before the exploration of the crude oil in Nigeria, Nigerian ran an agrarian economy and all her activities were fully funded by this sector. Non-agricultural economy were not taken into cognizance as part of the income generating streams at the time. However, after the exploration of crude oil, between the year 1965-1975 (Ten years),Crude oil dependence by the country had risen to over an Eighty (80) percent. This means that attention had been shifted fro the agricultural sector of the economy to the oil producing sector of the economy without any back-up plan should the oil economy dwindle. Illegal bunkering poses a threat to the main income generating source of the Nigerian economy.  These illegally acquired national resource is then be sold after it has been illegal processed and refined to the unsuspecting public which the proceeds from these sales which normally should go to the country, go into private coffers. A Chatham House report states that Nigeria crude oil was being stolen at an “industrial scale”. A ten year study of NEITI reports a staggering forty-one point eight(41.8) billion dollars in revenue lost from oil theft. According to the reports, the aforementioned amount of money is capable of funding the Nigerian budget for a time frame of twenty years. This goes a long way to show how much harm has been done to the country’s financial economy due to the event of the monstrous activity.

Also an effect to the country’s financial economy is the withdrawal of foreign investments from Nigeria by foreign  investors because of the bad name these bunkers have carved out for Nigeria in the international scene. There has been a long struggle in the Nigeria Delta due to crude oil theft. To these investors, these oil theft poses threat to the the state, her institutions and her citizens hence the reason for the dissuasion from going into any form of economic relationship with Nigeria because of the fear of an impending political widespread chaos.

The environment has been on the receiving end of these ugly and humanity ravaging “disease”, pipeline vandalism. The economic activities of the residents of these affected communities are disadvantaged due to the problems posed by the oil bunkered oil. For instance, fish farming is disrupted due to oil spillage because majority of the commercially viable aquatic animals cannot survive under such conditions posed by the activity, Pipeline vandalism. Farming on the other hand is also at a bad place because oil spillage on the land leads to redundancy of the crop plants to reproduce which may spell doom to the subsistent agricultural farmer.

When the environment is polluted, the health of the individuals residing in these affected areas would also be at risk. For instance, pipe line vandalism is capable of triggering impromptu fire explosions which could disfigure the skin of anyone present at the scene of the accident. Also, the smoke emitted in the air as a result of the fire explosions or ordinarily, the activities of these illegal bunkers is capable  of making one’s eyesight blurry and after subsequent unprotected exposures to the smoke, blind. When the said smoke is inhaled, it could spell danger for a person’s respiratory system.

According to a private research, the total cost of cleaning the oil polluted areas is estimated at fifty(50) billion US DOLLARS. Notable men like Ken Saro-Wiwa has died because of the struggle for the liberation of these oil affected areas.

“No matter how bad a situation gets, it could always get better” so my self crafted saying goes. Although, the concept of crude oil bunkering sounds deadly, there are still some measure to which the deadly effects of this could be minimised to the barest minimum.

On the part of stiffer legislations, about six codes specify the punishment for oil bunkering but some of them are outdated. Section 4 (1) of the petroleum act prohibits bunkering while the hydro carbon refineries act of 1956  states that “No refinery shall be operated or constructed in Nigeria without the permission of the minister”. The United Nations convention against Trans-national  organized crimes defined organized crime group as “a structured group of three or more persons that exist over a period of time with the aim of committing a serous financial crimes-to obtain financial security and other benefits”. The crime of illegal oil bunkering meets the United States definition of organized crime and so it could only take stiff penalties which would be enacted by the legislature whether, federal or state law makers to deter group of persons from conniving or conjuring up intentions to vandalize pipelines and cart away the country’s resources into private coffers. One of the major laws stating the penalties for crude oil bunkering is entrenched in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act which stipulates the penalties for oil bunkering to be just a five thousand naira (N5,000) fee or twelve months imprisonment or both. Lawmakers with the appropriate jurisdictions should review these laws to ensure that stiffer penalties are enacted into law for the commissioners of this offense and which also must must equivalent to the gravity and weightness of the act committed which is crude oil bunkering.

Secondly, the security apparatus guiding the pipelines should be modified in such a way that the pipelines are more protected from being vandalised and criminal activities along the waterways which concerns not only oil explorations be easily detected to ensure the swift application of judicial measure to these criminal acts. More Security agencies could be made functional by the federal law makers. These proposed newly formulated agencies and the already existing ones should be adequately funded and also be provided with proper security tools like Drones, Sophisticated computers, and other enabling equipment to increase the intelligence operations of the security agencies along the waterways. These would enable them carry out their jobs more effectively.

Conclusively, crude oil theft is a very bad vice which has a lot of effects which affects all of humanity and those partaking in these unwholesome act should remember that “whatever goes around must come around”.

Onowugbeda Okeoghene Emmanuel, a student of Delta State University, Oleh Campus