I have been trying to wrap my head around the strategy behind the way the Asari Dokubo exposé on the military’s involvement in oil bunkering has been played.
Dokubo used the Presidential villa press center to drop this bombshell. Knowledgeable experts in the sector like
Tonye Cole have already corroborated Asari’s claim, even if they said attributing 99% of the crime to Military saboteurs is an exaggeration.
With Nigeria losing about N26 trillion to the double whammy of oil bunkering/illegal refineries and fuel subsidy since 2009 and the determination of President Tinubu to stop these bloodsuckers, something profound has to be done. It can no longer be business as usual.
For sure, the Military high command knew the crimes perpetrated by the criminals sabotaging the economy could not have been done without the help of some of its members who had become entrenched in their evil ways and the Military had been fighting the criminals. But the fact that it has festered for so long indicated that some influential military personalities might have soiled their hands in this flourishing trade. It also showed that no matter how well-intentioned the Military authorities had been in the past, they now need to take more urgent out-of-the box measures to stop the menace.
If the Military desires to know, right now, the culprits, past and present, they can. Then, why have the criminals not been decisively dealt with? Why have the bunkerers and their civilian collaborators been allowed to become this monstrous? With so much petro-dollars at their disposal, the perpetrators will attempt to compromise anyone. How can an illegal pipe be attached to the main pipe carrying oil to export terminals to siphon oil for 10 years and the security agencies wouldn’t know about it? Nothing can be more fitting in this instance than the famous idiomatic expression, tell that to the Marines.
That idiom had its root in Britain’s Royal Marines who would gullibly believe any nonsense. But the American Marines have given a new meaning to the idiom. Due to the efficiency of the American Marines, the expression has now become, if you want any wrong doing avenged, tell the Marines, because they will do something about it. Rather than being upset with Asari Dokubo, the Nigerian Military high command should be challenged to do something about this stranglehold on Nigeria’s biggest cash cow.
I have no doubt that the Nigerian military is highly professional. They must work for Nigeria and with the President to tackle this crime. I believe the Nigerian military have the capacity to deal with this exhaustively.
The best way they can win the trust and confidence of the C-in-C and the people of Nigeria is to stop the crime fully, apprehend the criminals, be they the kingpins or hirelings, and send them to the appropriate authorities for prompt prosecution.
On its part, the
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu government must not only continue to give the Military all the tools and support they need to succeed, it must also do all it takes to give the people of Niger Delta a new sense of belonging and turn them away from being easy abettors of criminal endeavours to the first line of defence against oil bunkering.