Securing gas and oil pipelines

Nigeria has been counting the cost of pipeline vandalisation in
the last six weeks. According to Mr. David Ige, Group
Executive Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC), the country has lost over N21.37 billion
as a result of vandalisation of the Trans- Forcados and the
Escravos- Lagos pipelines, which convey crude oil and gas to
various power plants in the country.
This is in tandem with the recent claim by Mrs. Diezani
Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, that vandals
break underwater pipelines and leak gas into the water for no
other reason than to sabotage electricity supply. This, it is
believed, is done to promote the multi-billion naira generator
importation business which is one of the fastest growing in
the country.
The whole scenario, therefore, reeks of economic sabotage
which the country can ill-afford. If we may ask: Where is the
government in this situation? It has become increasingly
difficult to accept these routine explanations and excuses for
poor performance of the power sector from government
officials, seeing that concrete efforts are not seen being made
to address them.
Apart from the organisations which have statutory
responsibility for the security of the nation’s oil facilities,
government paid huge sums of money to some ex-militants to
also police the pipelines. Nigeria, certainly, is not getting value
for the money being paid for the security of the pipelines.
What this means is that the nation is in double jeopardy: we
lose oil to vandals and our energy plants are denied needed
gas to generate the power that we need, yet, we pay heavily
for the protection of the pipelines with little or no results.
This, to say the least, is a terrible situation for any country or
a people to be in and government must do something urgently
to reassure the people that it is not merely paying lip-service
to the problem of economic sabotage. Vandals must be
caught and the full weight of the law brought to bear on them
to deter would-be saboteurs. There cannot be half-measures
about this.
Another dimension to this unsavory development is that it
adds to the general air of insecurity in the land. The country,
which is currently in the throes of a devastating insurgency in
the North-East geo-political zone of the country, cannot afford
the rising wave of pipeline vandalisation that we are currently
witnessing.
By most accounts, about 400,000 barrels of oil are stolen
daily, accounting for trillions of naira loss to the economy.
When we add the value of the gas condensate lost also, the
figures rise to astronomical levels, the impact of which we can
only imagine.
A nation cannot continuously fold its hands and leave its fate
to economic saboteurs, especially in the light of very serious
economic challenges such as the fall in global crude oil price.
Unless, as has been insinuated in some circles, government is
guilty is guilty of acquiescence in the malfeasance.
This is not the fate we want for our country. Let the
government act quickly to restore confidence of the people in
its ability to properly secure and manage national assets.