Senator Clever Ikisikpo, is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Special Duties and represents Bayelsa East Senatorial District. In this interview, he accuses the security agencies of being involved in the oil theft that has shamed the country across the world. He also speaks on other security challenges facing the country and how to tackle the challenges.
BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU
What’s your take on the spate of insecurity in Nigeria
The issue of insecurity in Nigeria has been a problem to everyone because just like I used to say that security is the problem of every person and if you think that security is only for the security agencies then we are deceiving ourselves. The issue of security should be taken seriously especially in areas where we have insecurity. With insecurity there will be no development, it is only in a country where there is security that development can go on. If the way the president is working, there had been no insecurity in those areas, development would have spread homogeneously in all parts of the federation. But I used to say that the issue of insecurity in Nigeria is in a way, self inflicted because most of us do not know that when you incite the youths, the youths will take a step more than what you are telling them.
Latest ranking of Nigeria as country with high crude oil theft
With the issue of crude oil, I would say it is difficult for us to account for all the crude produced because of leakages; leakages in the sense that we have illegal refineries, we have even unrecorded vessels taking our crude oil. How do they know the parameter for ranking Nigeria as one of the countries with highest crude theft? Yes,there are leakages, but I don’t believe that Nigeria ranks top in oil theft.
What could be done to stall oil theft?
You see one of the problems is sincerity; Sincerity in government. If you have an agency or ministry and everybody is sincere and transparent, we should be able to block these leakages. Now within the territorial waters, we have the Navy, the Customs and other agencies that are working within our territorial waters but how sincere are they? Some of these Customs and Naval Officers are also involved.
So, if you are given security and you leave the work of security to involve yourself with those who are making loopholes to occur then how do you think we would be able to account for all that is going on within the crude oil sector. So, most of the security people are really involved with respect to the oil theft that is happening within our territorial waters. And that is the only area that we can only block. Pipelines are being tapped by illegal refineries, then, can’t we have a computerized system or way of knowing where someone is trying to illegally tap crude oil from our pipelines? Because we have gone automated in so many ways, so, with the automated system of things happening in the country, we should be able to use automated way in knowing where leakages of crude oil are at any point for us to arrest the situation.
There seems to be relative peace in the Niger Delta. What has been responsible for this?
You see, when we talk about relative peace in the Niger Delta area, it is the handwork of every elder and youth within the region because all of us agree. That is why we always call on the north, where we are having these security problems, that if all the northern elders, emirs and chiefs should come together to say all these things such as insurgency should not happen, it will not happen. In the olden days when there were no police, people respect chiefs; people respect the emirs.
THE VANGUARD
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