Senator Seriake Dickson, representing Bayelsa West, pointed out that some very Important personalities (VIPs) from Abuja and Lagos are involved in the rampant oil theft plaguing the Niger Delta region.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, the former two-term governor of Bayelsa State said that the official system and oil companies are complicit beneficiaries of the oil theft epidemic in the Niger Delta.
“People from Abuja and Lagos are the masterminds, and the official system is not ignorant and not innocent.” He decried the entrenched nature of corruption within both the official security apparatus and oil companies, condemning the absence of national values that allowed the exploitation of Nigeria’s resources for personal gain.
Stating the lack of accountability in Nigeria’s oil sector, Dickson questioned why, after decades of oil production and export, there still isn’t a scientific method of metering and recording oil transactions. He said that this lack of oversight is deliberate and not confined to the Niger Delta alone.
“Why should a country like Nigeria that has been producing oil, exporting oil for the past 70 years not have a scientific way of metering, recording what leaves, what is pumped, what is sold and what is not sold? And it’s deliberate.
Dickson linked the oil theft to a myriad of social issues, including the proliferation of illegal money, arms trafficking, and drug abuse, which have fueled cultism and violence in affected communities.
“It’s not a Niger Delta thing; it’s just happening there and it is unfortunate that it has destroyed communities because there is too much illegal money, illegal arms, illicit drugs and it has fueled cultism because people want to get the loyalties of young people to be able to hold territories where oil facilities are.
Dickson has called for an urgent need for a global consensus to reject stolen crude oil from Nigeria, urging strong political will from government authorities at all levels to combat oil theft effectively.
