Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams on Friday said efforts to secure the pipelines were frustrated by officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) who were unhappy that their agents were being prevented from stealing oil and vandalising pipelines.
According to him, the issue of crude oil theft in the country would have been significantly reduced if the Federal government had not terminated the pipeline surveillance contract it had with the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and some security outfits.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen, Adams also blamed Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information for using propaganda to rubbish the genuine efforts of the OPC to secure the pipelines.
According to him, Lai Mohammed claimed that the OPC received N12 billion to secure the pipelines, whereas it was just a N1.9 billion contract.
In his words “Presently, 30 percent of our oil are being stolen by the cabals. In 2015, we were given a contract by the federal government which was initiated by the NNPC. They called me to come and get the contract for the surveillance security of the pipelines, I never lobbied for it.
“NNPC agreed that the organisation that can prevent their oil from being stolen and also secure their facilities is the OPC. They then shared the contract between me and Dr. Frederick Fasehun. We were given less than N2billion for the job. Out of the N1.9b that we got; we paid workers N1.6billion within three months.
“They gave us the standards of NNPC which we must use in paying our workers and they monitor our invoices every month. Despite the fact that we did a great job in securing the pipelines, some Yoruba people and politicians frustrated our efforts. The North and Niger Delta did not sabotage our efforts, it is our people.”
Speaking on the challenges faced by the OPC then in carrying out its job, he said “Let me tell you exactly what happened then. Some of the NNPC officials were unhappy with our operations then because we didn’t allow their agents who usually steal the oil to operate. Within one month, we apprehended over 80 vandals.