Capt. Adewale Ishola (Master Mariner)
Capt. Adewale Ishola (Master Mariner)
If the security and monitoring agents are conducting proper patrol on Nigerian waters, then they will be able to catch the perpetrators, but first of all there has to be provision for boats for patrolling the waters and also helicopters for monitoring them from the sky, this is the only time that we can successfully cub them, we need a proper monitoring, if the security men are not conniving with them, then they should be able to pick them up. If we can police our waters very well, the act will definitely stop, just like what the NIMASA and the Navy are doing now, they need to do more. However we will need the resources to do the patrol, it takes a lot of logistics to move the boats for patrol up and down, if the government cannot provide the resources, then there will be no patrol, if there is no fuel how. can they patrol well?
Chris Iyasere (Petroleum Marketer)
The word illegal is enough to prove that what they are doing is absolute stealing of our petroleum products, especially in the creek areas, and this cannot happen without the connivance of the Nigerian Navy because it is their primary responsibility to check our territorial waters and make sure that the intruders who come to steal are properly put in check, but it beats my imagination to begin to see an illegal immigrant coming with a ship, load it in Nigeria and the Nigerian Navy will be there and still allow these things to go, most of the ones they arrest are probably because they refused to corporate. The issue is that government has not really come out with the appropriate policy to checkmate the act, if they arrest any vessel that is loaded with illegally refined product; the question is where did it pass? So, to forestall all these, government should put a policy in place that if you are posted on the water as a government agent and in your time such an incidence happened, then you must be prosecuted and jailed, this will serve as a deterrent.
Olanife Adeoye (petroleum marketer)
Recently we were told that government has succeeded in closing down a number of illegal refineries and I think government has started well, but the main solution to curbing the theft of our crude oil is for us to have a standard refinery to provide for local consumption, because the fact that we produce below our quantity for consumption locally is the cause of all these problems, it is just like any other items, when there is shortage of supply and demand is more than supply, then all other means of supply will have to come in, so in other to stop these illegal refining and bunkering, we need a new refinery. Also, any vessel caught in the act of crude oil theft should be impounded and be handed over to the court for appropriate prosecution because they are dangerous to our economy, but the problem we have now is that our judiciary is nothing to write home about.
Comrade Chinedu Uzokwe (NPENG, PTD Unit)
Personally I believe it is not only the government that can stop crude oil theft, we as an individual also have a role to play by helping the government, in areas where we have pipelines, some of the community members are aware of the illegal act, and our retired military officers like the navy, army and police including the serving ones are all aware of the business, it is not only the government that can stop bunkering. The government is trying its best presently, we have the navy, the marine police, and they are all given the equipment they require, but because of money they are not doing their job properly. My summation is that, without our help, the government cannot do anything, let there be more security around pipeline areas, but without the indigenes of the area, there is nothing that can be done.
Engineer Reginald Onyenobi [Seafarer]
The government has actually jettisoned the people who really know much about how to address the issue of theft on our waters and in my own opinion, I think the government should consider those who know much about the sea and embraced them to tackle the situation on our territorial waters. But we keep saying that the seafarers under the auspices of the merchant Navy know the coast because they are the crew members and most of them know the creeks that surround our waters thus when you put them in that position, they will be able to narrate all what is going on in our waters by way of correspondence, but the government has not been able to carry us along. The merchant navies are people that can give the right information to other agencies if issue of theft is on at sea. I think the government should draw the seafarers close so that they can be enlightened on how to address the issue at hand. It is better for government to look for a preventive measures rather than finding solution because it is better to prevent rather than finding a lasting solution and the merchant navy are the right one to prevent the incessant attack of vessels on our coast by way of disseminating vital information on what is happening on our maritime domain to the relevant agencies of the government and it also goes beyond attacks on oil tankers because vessels like fishing trawlers and cargo vessels are also being attack by the day.
Anonymous
The people that are involved in theft of incoming commodities via vessels are basically people that live in the riverine areas that are deprived from basic necessity of life, they are unemployed youths and people who do not have any option but go to out with their boats and attack vessels with locally made arms.
Most of the people who engage themselves in this act are basically jobless. I think what government can do is to equip the Nigeria navy at sea and also embrace the issue of amnesty by rehabilitating the youths in the riverine communities of the coastal states of the country because an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. However government should establish laws that will deterr the sea robbers because when the agencies of the government apprehend these daredevil thieves on our waters, they serve six months in police custody after that they let them go, after killing or maiming innocent crew member on board a vessel will give them the mindset of doing it again so the government should sentenced them for like six years or more to teach and why they are serving the jail term, try to rehabilitate them.
Engineer Mathew Alalade [President, Merchant Navy]
Government should create an enabling environment for our indigenous ship owners for them to have good contract with multinational oil and gas organizations and if that platform is in place then there will be jobs for our people which will in turn will reduce the act of stealing and sea robbery because there is no job for the boys and government is giving foreign ship owners preference to lift oil and indigenes are not having or given that advantage ,then there is no way the issue of crude oil theft can be addressed properly. As it is for now, sea banditry or piracy on our waters is increasing by the day because the records are there and we do receive news about ugly incident that occur to the seafarers and we are not happy about it. I think government agencies should provide tracking devices to vessels and also educate the operators on how to use communication devices in terms of distress on the high sea.
Chris Sadoh [Stars Maritime Academy]
Nigeria is a country that has leaders who do not really care about the common man, and that is why things are not moving forward. The issue of theft on our waters is not supposed to be an issue of discourse in the first instance because supposed the government had been able to empower and equip agencies that are in charge to address that issue because I do not see a situation whereby the navy cannot address the issue of theft on our water, but we always lack continuity in this country. Government on their part should try to encourage the agencies involved on our coastal water by providing them with the right equipment and weapon to tackle the issue of theft on our territorial waters.
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