The Nigerian Army and other security outfits have been accused in the oil theft skirmish by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria.
According to The Punch, PENGASSAN made the accusation during the oil lifting and theft investigation chaired by Senator Akpan Bassey sitting at the Senate on Wednesday.
The National President of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, speaking at the meeting accused military personnel assigned to protect oil installations of collaborating with the locals running illegal refineries.
He alleged that the military and other security agencies were aiding and abetting criminals to steal the crude with the active connivance of the regulatory agencies in charge of the nation’s petroleum industry.
Osifo, therefore, challenged the regulatory agencies and various security outfits to be alive to their responsibilities in order to solve the problems.
He specifically alleged that men of the Amphibious Brigade in Port Harcourt and their counterparts in the Navy, in connivance with superior officers at different times, joined the locals in the theft.
Osifo alleged, “One of the greatest problems we have, which nobody has highlighted, is that there is strong connivance of our security forces in the crime.
“There is no doubt about this. From our Army to our Navy officers, we have information that they pay their superiors to post them to some areas in the Niger Delta.
“I can authoritatively inform this committee that men of the Nigerian Army and the Navy pay their superiors to be posted to Niger Delta. Even when the former Commander of the Amphibious Brigade in Port Harcourt was removed, many of the men in the command resisted being posted out due to the ‘lucrativeness’ of their operational areas.
“I think the people who have a solution to this problem are not even the ones sitting here. They are the ones you will invite behind the camera”.
