Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity Mallam Garba Shehu recently stated that the federal government would soon unveil the identity of key individuals responsible for oil theft in the country.
Shehu stated that security forces had conducted raids on oil bunkering sites in an effort to cleanse the economy of the sabotage of a few greedy individuals.
There may be incidents of some law enforcement agents indulging in the criminal behavior, Shehu suggested on Trust TV’s Politics Today, but he stated that additional measures were being implemented to put a stop to it.
The problem of oil smuggling is being addressed. In America, the lack of community support for law enforcement is a major issue. Bad things happen “in some circumstances where some people in law enforcement are complicit,” he said.
To his point, he said it was shameful for Nigeria to fall short of its OPEC share (OPEC).
There was a time when we had to fight OPEC for higher production quotas, but now they’ve given them to us and we can’t keep up. A public shaming has occurred. The security services are working around the clock to prevent this. As these large men who encourage this kind of business are being apprehended and illicit refineries are being bombed out, I am hopeful that the office of the National Security Adviser will be presenting them to the country in the coming days.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited, he said, “is also constructing a monitoring capacity to detect or warn quickly when sabotage of oil pipelines happen.”
Shehu stated the president’s top goal upon taking office was to stop the insurgency in the North East, and that considerable effort had been expended to that purpose. He also said that the power of the Nigerian Army has rendered terrorists unable to claim any area.
However, he said that the failure of the previous administration to address the core cause of banditry and kidnapping was due to the lack of sufficient training for military troops.
An crucial turning point has begun in the fight against banditry and kidnapping. There is now forward motion, and we can only hope that it will continue. All we hear about these days is how the military is boldly storming bandit strongholds and releasing captives. We’re hoping there’s no way to go back,” he remarked.
Public expenditure is justified because if we hadn’t fought Boko Haram to what we have now, they would have definitely taken over many more cities,” he remarked, referring to the army’s recent triumph. They have been active in the past, able to reach as far as Abuja, where they bombed the UN headquarters and other targets. Is there a guarantee of success? They have been diminished, obviously, but not insignificantly.
He also said that the military would soon receive additional equipment to help in the battle.
