Failure in governance reason for increasing oil theft – Prince Adebayo

Emmanuel Alfred

The Presidential Hopeful of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo has launched a scathing attack on public office holders by blaming them for the increasing oil theft in the country.

Prince Adebayo, who made this known during a sit-down with journalists on the state of the Nation said that the key perpetrators of this theft are the government officials and the government of the day is responsible for the stopping of this irresponsible acts.

He said: “I have been complaining that tons of our crude being are being stolen everyday but no one seemed to be interested. But as more evidence of the theft keep coming into the view of the public space, the government are beginning to show “concerns” with their fake discoveries of illegal pipelines”.
“This crime is not committed by only outsiders as they do not control the water ways, monitor our oil wells and give authorization to vessels coming in and out of the country”.
“It is a crime that has been carried out for a very long time so it is not the problem of the All Progressives Congress (APC). What is making it more evident in this current administration is due to their poor organization”. He added.
“All the complaints we have of budget failures, deficit finance, debt accumulations and even poor infrastructure are all attributed to the nonchalant attitude of the men in Aso Rock to decisively put a stop to this menace that is running this Nation to the ground”.

The legal luminary who is proposing a no nonsense stance on corruption decried that the money used to “develop” the different regions of the country is less than twenty percent of the money lost through oil theft.

On probable solutions to this, he said, “I will appoint a Petroleum Minister with a zero stance on corruption, enact policies that see the Nigerian Naval Service impound vessels coming into the country without authorization and even liaise with international bodies to install security systems on our pipelines that will make it difficult to steal our crude”.

“I believe that our ability to curb the menace of oil theft by a considerable amount will see us put structures that will lead to economic development in the country”. He concluded.