THE chairman of the Traditional Rulers Council of Bayelsa State, Bubaraye Dakolo, has criticised the Federal Government for failing to prosecute and jail people he described as real perpetrators of oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
Dakolo chided the government for the neglect, despite the trillions of dollars worth of crude stolen from the country, and oil being the mainstay of the nation’s economy.
Dakolo expressed his displeasure with the situation on Monday, May 26, during a Channels Television programme, ‘The Morning Brief.’
He said rather than the government identifying and prosecuting the real thieves, it goes after poor residents in the region.
He said, “From the record we have today, there are about 200,000 barrels of crude oil stolen every day, and this amount of crude oil cannot be put in your mouth or pocket. So, ocean-going vessels are used in stealing them, but the Nigerian State is chasing victims of oil thievery — those who are not able to go to school, those who are not able to buy trousers for themselves, those who cannot afford three square meals.
“The oil thief is not the youth in the Niger Delta who are painted as oil thieves. The oil thieves usually have properties on Banana Island and in choice places in Abuja. The oil thief will have properties in London and other parts of Europe and America.”
Dakolo alleged that the real oil thieves would have a yacht, glossy skin and would not want to come to the creeks of the Niger Delta even for a day.
“If he has to come, he will come with a military escort, police escort, doctors, nurses, and all.
“In case he is bitten by a mosquito, they would have to cure him because he loves his life dearly, he wouldn’t want to take the risk of coming to be in the swamps of the Niger Delta,” the Monarch maintained.
While berating the government for not knowing who the real oil thieves were, Dakolo claimed that no oil thief had been arrested, prosecuted, and jailed by the Nigerian government for years.
“If you go to the Kirikiri Correctional Centre, there is not one oil thief on the list of persons ever jailed.
“If you go to Kogi Prison, there is not one oil thief on that list; if you go to Kuje Prison as well, there is no oil thief listed among those who have ever been jailed,” he stated.
He further expressed concern over the revenue lost in crude oil theft to the country, describing it as a lack of accountability by the government.
“The Federal Government not properly defining who an oil thief is has set us on this trajectory. As we speak now, about $3 trillion worth of oil has been sold or extracted over the years, and most of it has been outright stolen, never brought to Nigeria.
“Of course, you must have heard of the ‘Abacha loot,’ which, even though the man has been dead for about 27 or so years, the money keeps coming every year,” Dakolo said.
The ICIR can report that in February this year, the Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, raised the hope of the security agencies and oil industry operators working towards achieving Nigeria’s target of 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day.
He had earlier, in July 2024, expressed the determination to curb oil theft in the Niger Delta within three months and increase production.
In June last year, The ICIR reported that the Nigerian government was losing over N16 billion in revenue daily from crude oil production, which amounted to N1.62 trillion between January and May that year, as outputs dropped considerably.
The latest data from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) shows that Nigeria’s crude oil production failed to improve, dropping further to 1.401 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, heightening the growing apprehension over the 2025 budget implementation.