PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu must be willing to take up Tony Elumelu’s gauntlet on oil theft. The top businessman recently challenged the Federal Government and security agencies to disclose the identities of those stealing the country’s crude oil, especially those using vessels that move through territorial waters. This is a good cause that deserves urgent and sustained presidential attention.

In a viral Financial Times of London interview, Elumelu said the obvious – that crude oil theft had contributed to the divestment of international oil companies in Nigeria. He spoke from experience. In 2022, his company shut down production after losing over 95 per cent of oil production to thieves.

Then, Shell’s Bonny Terminal, which should have received over 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily, received less than 3,000bpd, and the company had to declare a force majeure. “This is oil theft; we’re not talking about stealing a bottle of Coke you can put in your pocket. The government should know, they should tell us.”

Elumelu captured the frustration of Nigerians by pointing out that oil thieves continue to plunder the country’s strategic resources at will for decades, and no one is held accountable. Nigeria’s oil production has continued to dwindle drastically from a peak of 2.5 million bpd in 2011 to 1.3mbpd as of June largely due to oil theft.

Last August, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, said Nigeria was losing over 400,000bpd to theft, equivalent to $12.26 billion yearly. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative said audit figures covering 2009 to 2020 have put Nigeria’s losses to crude theft over 12 years at 619.7 million barrels valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion. The NNPC reported oil production of 2.2mbd in 2021, which compared to present figures implies a daily production loss of 900,000bpd or $72 million more than double what is being admitted.

While Nigeria is saddled with a national debt of N121 trillion and 173 million citizens unable to afford a healthy diet, the Federal Government has been unable or unwilling to stop the massive haemorrhaging of the oil sector, which accounts for 95 per cent of forex earnings. This is untenable.

The huge amounts lost could have been directed at much-needed social services. Oil theft is directly responsible for the currency devaluation and has a direct negative impact on the quality of life of Nigerians.

Brazen oil theft is state capture by the same elements charged with securing Nigeria’s oil assets and their chain of collaborators. Only in Nigeria can vessels enter territorial waters, lift stolen oil, and disappear. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, in 2021, during his tenure as Rivers State governor, accused a General Officer Commanding an Army division of running an oil theft syndicate.

In 2014, the late former Bayelsa State Governor, DSP Alamieyeseigha, testified in the Senate about how he arrested 14 big tankers with stolen crude. However, NNPC officials testified before a court that the seized crude was agrochemicals, and the arrested vessels and crew were released. Security agents quickly destroy vessels caught with stolen crude thereby undermining the evidence of the crime.

It should be clear by now that Nigeria will remain trapped in debt and poverty. If such humongous economic losses continue, no amount of tinkering with policies by the CBN or the Finance Ministry will yield results.

This also means that the refining sector, which has unexpectedly gained ascendancy in the global oil play, will be stuck in the same mess with perennial shortages of domestic crude feedstock.

Allowing this travesty to continue will amount to surrendering state power to the buccaneering clique of criminals in high and low places.

Therefore, Tinubu must end the grand oil theft. (The PUNCH Editorial)