NNPC boss, Kyari decries oil theft, alleges collaboration between security agents and criminals

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, Mele Kyari, has condemned the spate of oil theft in the country.

Kyari, who spoke on Newsnight, a pre-recorded programme on Channels Television, part of which was published on Sunday, noted those engaging in the crime used technology to lay pipelines.

He also accused security and government officials of collaborating with oil thieves.

The NNPC chief, however, revealed that the Federal Government has stepped up strategies to combat the scourge with the deployment of helicopters for 24-hour surveillance to monitor and protect pipelines.

Read also:IMF questions NNPC’s claim on 66m litres daily fuel consumption

He said: “When you introduce technology into stealing and this is precisely what they did and when there is a collaboration of people who should not be part of that transactions, you can lay pipelines and no one will see it.

“You can do it in the night if you have the abilities and ultimately, this is what we think happened. You can lay pipelines for the wrong reasons to abandon or active assets. You will see end-to-end collaboration either by people who are around those assets, people operating the assets, or people supposed to provide security.

“You can eliminate anything. When you find collaborators in the system, then you can get anything done. We didn’t know because the extent of collaboration is unknown to us.”

By Abdulkabeer Ambali

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