Soldiers to take over pipeline security

The life of affluence exhibited by some ex-militants who depended on the lucrative contracts of protecting the nation’s oil pipelines may now be over as the military are to be drafted to the pipeline points.
The ex-militants and some leaders of ethnic militia were awarded mouth-watering contracts running into billions of Naira by the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The beneficiaries include Asari Dokubo, Tompolo, the OPC as well as some MASSOB leaders.
But on Tuesday, there were clear indications that the game was up after a meeting between the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu and the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin.
After the meeting, the Acting Director of Defence Information, Col. Rabe Abubakar, said the interaction focused on how to work out modalities to get the military to protect the strategic national assets.
In a statement he issued on Tuesday, Abubakar said that Kachikwu solicited the support of the CDS in the fight against crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism and other maritime crime.

Read also: Asari, Fasheun, Adams threaten FG over multi billion naira contract

The NNPC’s GMD was said to have told the CDS that the country was losing 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day which was one-fifth of the total production in the country and as such there was need for the best hands to protect the pipelines.
Kachikwu was also quoted to have also said he wanted the Army Corps of Engineering to maintain and secure the nation’s pipelines and that the NNPC had equally reached out to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadiq Abubakar, on the issue.
He said he wanted the Navy and the Air Force to work in collaboration with the NNPC to secure the nation’s pipelines and to prevent the theft of the country’s oil.
“We are trying to equip the Navy a lot more with boats for patrols; we are trying to get trackers and central system to be able to monitor every vessel that comes in and out of the country.
“We have equally spoken with the Chief of Air Staff on other effective ways of collaboration,” he was quoted to have said.

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