Who's To Blame?
By Anza Philips
Monday, October 11, 2004
The nation's security chiefs trade accusations at the public hearing on two missing oil bunkering ships
Drama, denials, accusations and counter accu-sations among the chiefs of the nation's security agencies have characterised the ongoing investigations into the disappearance of the two oil bunkering vessels, MT African Pride and MT Jimoh that were detained.
Vice-admiral Sunday Afolayan, chief of Naval staff traded accusations openly with the Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun as to who should be blamed for the missing ship with its crew members. He told the Navy Committee of the House of Representatives investigating the matter in Abuja that MT African pride had disappeared after the Navy, acting on a Presidential directive, had handed over the vessel to the police.
But Balogun told the committee that Afolayan had lied against the Police. He said that the Navy did not hand over the vessel to the police. He showed the committee a copy of a Navy signal stopping the release of the vessel to the police-a proof the Navy has been unable to deny.
Sunday Baje, Navy Commodore and CO Naval signals claimed that "The signals of 16 and 17 February are correct and true. They are the directives of the Chief of Operations. There is no way I can release a signal without him. What he said here is a lie. He has lied. He initialed it after he directed me to draft the signals. He originated the signals," Baje told the committee.
But Francis Agbiti, a rear-admiral and chief of operations produced documents to show he neither knew of or authorised the signals.
Kayode Are, the Director-General of the State Security Service, SSS, told the House committee that the police lacked the necessary capacity to keep in its custody the vessel on the high sea.
Funso Kupolokun, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had told the committee that a total of eight ships were arrested with 11,950 cubic meters of crude oil. He said MT African Pride alone had 15,000 metric tones of crude which has already been sold.
The MD said that the recovery of stolen crude from arrested ship was on- going and had been on before January 29 date, when President Olusegun Obasanjo directed the Navy to transfer the vessel and the suspects on board the ship to the police for investigation
Kupolokun told the committee which is headed by Tony Aziegbemi that the money realised from the sale of the seized crude was paid into the federation account and that the payment was well documented.
He said that the arrested MT African Pride was not the same one that brought petroleum products into the country and was registered in Panama.
