The report that MT African Pride, one of the detained ships seized from illegal oil bunkerers last year had vanished from the nation�s territorial waters has been generating intense debate. The missing ship, a major exhibit in the illegal oil bunkering case involving some foreigners, allegedly slipped through the fingers of the Nigerian Navy and the Police, who were its custodians at one point or the other. The ship, which was to be tendered as evidence in the trial of suspected oil thieves, reportedly disappeared despite express directives by President Olusegun Obasanjo that it should be well-guarded.
The President had specifically directed that the Nigerian Navy, in whose custody the vessel originally was, should hand it over to the Nigeria Police for protection. He also ordered the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to evacuate the crude oil in the ship, while the Police were to hand it over to the Ministry of Transport, in the event of conviction of the suspected illegal bunkerers.
In his testimony at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives on the missing ship, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Samuel Afolayan, accused the Police of plotting MT African Pride�s escape. Afolayan said the seized ships, numbering 21 in all, were handed over to the Police in line with the President�s directive.
The naval boss claimed that rather than take charge of the ship, the Police High Command allegedly negotiated unofficially with an unnamed Navy Commander in Lagos, who in turn delegated the responsibility to a naval rating, an arrangement which the Chief of Naval Staff himself confessed was �loose.� He stated that there was no crude oil in the missing ship as claimed, while the NNPC has also not opened up on whether or not it evacuated any crude from the ship.
However, in his own testimony at the Reps� public hearing, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, absolved the Police of complicity in the missing ship, contending that Afolayan�s testimony against the Police was false. Balogun said despite President Obasanjo�s directive that the ship be handed over to the Police by the Navy, the latter never did. Balogun said he had alerted the International Police to help track the ship.
The buck-passing between the Police and the Navy notwithstanding, it is evident that the nation�s security apparatus is now dangerously compromised. Indeed, that a whole ship can disappear from their custody is a frightening clue to the fact that those entrusted with the nation�s security may have become the real security risk. It shows how vulnerable the nation�s flanks have become in their hands, and how they help make the cabal suspected to be behind oil theft more powerful than the State.
About three and a half years ago, the nation was losing about $57 million weekly to oil thieves -- a figure Afolayan claimed has reduced to $10 million. Indeed, illegal oil bunkering has been a veritable threat to the nation�s economy. The nation lost six million barrels of crude oil worth N20 billion in the first quarter of 2003 at an average of 120,000 barrels per day. In essence, the illegal trade is still thriving
Based on the foregoing, the unconvincing story of the Navy and the Police in this matter should be assessed, this being the nation�s first major attempt to get at oil thieves. It takes a relatively long time to prepare a ship before it sets sail. Besides, the snail speed of a ship is such that even with a combat speed boat, it would have been intercepted by a security apparatus alert to its responsibility. In addition, why was the Nigerian satellite, Nigeria SAT-1, launched on September 27 last year, not used in tracking the ship?
The ball is now in the FG�s court to either sanitise the nation�s security apparatus or allow them sink the nation. The Navy and the Police must not get away with this mess.
