The Nigerian Navy has warned crude oil thieves and other criminals that the country’s waterways will be too hot for them to operate.
The warning was issued by the Director of Naval Information, Navy Captain Abiodun Folorunsho, during an interview on Channels Television’s ‘The Morning Brief’, on Thursday.
Folorunsho said, “The message from the Nigerian Navy is: there is no hiding place with our maritime surveillance equipment and with the sustained drive under the directive of the incumbent Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Idi Abbas.
“I just wish to tell them—I mean these criminal elements that want to come to perpetuate these crimes—their days are numbered, and if we catch you, of course, we’ll ensure that you face the law,” he said on Thursday’s edition of the Channels Television breakfast show.
He spoke a day after the Nigerian Navy announced that it discovered three suspected illegal refining sites, six reservoirs and approximately 99,000 litres of products suspected to be stolen crude oil and illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).
It said the products were recovered in its operational areas in Rivers and Delta states.
Folorunsho described crude oil thieves as sophisticated syndicates.
“You don’t steal crude at that scale without some wherewithal to be able to make it happen,” he said.
“I mean, when you’re talking about metric tonnes, you’re talking about ships, and you know what it takes to operate at sea. It’s not something that you just come by on the road.”
However, the Director of Naval Information said the Federal Government has invested more in equipping the Nigerian Navy, thus making it difficult for criminals to operate, especially in the country’s waterways.
“The Nigerian Navy has, over the years, due to some painstaking investments by the Federal Government, acquired some of the finest maritime surveillance equipment,” he said.
“It’s almost impossible for you to operate in Nigerian waters and well within our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) without us being able to see you. So it is making it almost impossible for these guys to just carry very large vessels and go out there. Whenever they start, we see them and immediately intercept to make sure that it’s unsuccessful.”
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