The Nigerian Navy said it would investigate rather than gloss over allegations of military involvement in oil theft, saying any personnel found culpable would be dismissed and prosecuted.
The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, said this while fielding questions from newsmen in Port Harcourt on Thursday evening, after a two-day tour of naval formations and facilities in Rivers State.
Some of the places he visited were the Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base, Bonny Island, Nigerian Navy Hydrographic School, Borikiri, Nigerian Naval Shipyard, Port Harcourt, Nigerian Navy Medical Centre, Borikiri, Nigerian Navy Basic Training School, Onne; Nigerian Naval College, Onne; the Nigerian Navy Ship, ‘Pathfinder’, ‘Rumuelumeni’, among others.
Ogalla pledged that the Navy will scale-up waterways surveillance, especially in the creeks, and strike criminal elements to end the menace of illegal crude oil refining and illicit bunkering.
While noting that the Navy has recorded huge success in scuttling illegal oil bunkering activities across the maritime environment in the Niger Delta and beyond, he said the security agency would not rest on its laurels. He, however, said most of the allegations against the military with respect to oil theft were false and unfounded.
On some of the long-term measures going forward, the CNS said, “We are going to improve surveillance capability; because we want to be able to strike the criminals even before they go into the act.
Ogalla emphasised that these efforts can be achieved through ‘proper human intelligence and the application of ‘technology’. “We are going to do that and with that we believe we will achieve the desired objective”, Ogalla added.
