On April 28, at the National Conference Committee on Public Finance and Revenue meeting in Abuja, former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, told his colleagues how some Nigerians and expatriates bleed the country dry through oil bunkering and kidnapping.
Oguwike
Nwachuku
In what looked like a no-holds-barred disclosure, arising from his personal experience as Governor, Alamieyeseigha said former naval officers and their foreign collaborators are on top of Nigeria’s economic sabotage, with successive governments looking the other way.
Alamieyeseigha said: “The so-called militants we celebrate who tap oil are only employed as escorts. If there is no buyer, we will not find a seller. The post retirement job of a senior naval officer is bunkering.
“None of those boys you see in the Niger Delta has the connections to bring ships to our economic zone to lift oil. Those who are making the connections are also part of us.”
What I found quite amazing and instructive was that he brought the name of former President Olusegun Obasanjo into the mix. He said while both were in office he met Obasanjo over oil bunkering and kidnapping. Tempers rose at the meeting, which made him believe that Obasanjo was a chief bunkerer, he added.
He said it was in an attempt by Obasanjo to convince him about what he too was doing to stem the ugly tide that Obasanjo showed him a list of oil thieves in the country.
Amameiyeseigha is not telling us anything new. Over the years, Nigerians have come to know that military officers, serving and retired, are not thieves, so to say, but when they walk past a particular area things get missing. This scenario stars us in the face any time their alleged involvement in oil theft comes up.
Oil bunkering is a risky, but lucrative business. It is not for the lilly-levered, the uninitiated or the unconnected. It requires a considerable dose of high level conspiracy, foreign and local, in high quarters. Oil bunkering is for big boys in the military, police, immigration, customs; and of late, all manner of security agencies created for reasons other than what the common man knows.
Not all those who form the core of the gang can afford to go through the gamut of its complexities. You must be an apostle of Machiaveli, in which case his work, The end justifies the means, is a guide. Might must always be right if you are into oil bunkering. If you do not have the courage to trudge on, you will, like the seed planted on rocky sand, wither. Or get choked up if you are the seed planted on thorny ground.
Except Alams is deceiving himself, and deceiving all of us, over the years there has been a link between military officers on top of oil theft and kidnapping and politicians. Most politicians cannot function without these masters of the sea in oil theft and kidnapping, else their political career runs into a hitch.
Oil bunkerers sponsor into office politicians, who, in turn, help sustain their oil deal. They employ kidnapping as a tool against politicians against their interest.
That is why those Alamieyeseigha calls escorts have become too used to oil bunkering and kidnapping that no genuine business appeals to them. Simply put, they enjoy the business because it is lucrative, not withstanding that they are just escorts for the big boys.
What Alams is rather reminding us is that Nigeria’s political leadership will continue to carry a baggage of insincerity whereby nothing about the ordinary citizens matters to them. And he shares in that minus. Otherwise, how would he not see the role Niger Delta militants, whom he describes as escorts, as not amounting to economic sabotage as well?
What is wrong in telling his kinsmen who have keyed into this cycle of economic sabotage as errand boys to hands off so that we focus attention on the major drivers, the military top officers, as he rightly identified?
Now on Obasanjo. This is a man who had the opportunity to etch his name in gold but bungled it. He was not only respected in the military, he was also feared. When he assumed the leadership of the country the second time in 1999, the expectation was high that he would do so many things to the admiration of Nigerians.
Unfortunately, he failed to rise above the narrow confines of seeing himself as coming from the military, and before we knew it, espirit de corps took over his discernment. His boys in the military continued with business as usual. That is still happening.
If, therefore, Obasanjo showed Alams a list of oil thieves and did nothing to them, you see what I mean about the insincerity in our leadership?
As President and Commander-in-Chief, Obasanjo would not have clutched in his armpit the list of oil thieves, obtained in a security report, instead of showing them the way to the gulag during the eight years he held sway as President so that others would learn a lesson.
Somehow, Obasanjo also confirmed Alam’s accusation that he was the chief oil bunkerer.
But what advice is Alams giving President Goodluck Jonathan, his former Deputy and kinsman, now that he knows oil bunkering and kidnapping undermine the “good work” of Jonathan’s administration? That is the critical question.
Does Jonathan himself not have the same list Obasanjo purportedly had, and what is he doing about those on it? He who comes to equity must come with clean hands, and the only way Alams will convince Nigerians that what Obasanjo did was wrong is if Jonathan confronts the challenges posed by oil theft and kidnapping.
Otherwise, Alams is not saying anything new.
