Nigerian businessman, Tony Elumelu has called out President Bola Tinubu’s government over alleged oil theft in the country.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Friday, Tony Elumelu said that Tinubu’s government and security agents should be able to identify those stealing the country’s crude oil, especially using vessels that pass through territorial waters.
The billionaire emphasized that oil theft is a significant issue, contributing to the divestment of international oil companies in Nigeria.
In 2022, Tony Elumelu had shared his own experience, saying that criminal gangs began stealing crude from his pipelines, leading to production shutdowns that year.
Taking to social media, he had wrote: “How can we be losing over 95 per cent of oil production to thieves?
“Look at the Bonny Terminal which should be receiving over 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily, instead, it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator Shell to declare force majeure.
“The reason Nigeria is unable to meet its OPEC production quota is not because of low investment but because of theft, pure and simple!
He also criticized Nigerian leaders for not being accountable, contrasting the situation with other oil-producing countries that benefit from rising foreign reserves.
“Meanwhile, oil-producing countries are smiling as their foreign reserve is rising. What is Nigeria’s problem? We need to hold our leaders more accountable!”
During the Financial Times interview, Elumelu noted that oil thieves still take away 18 percent of the crude from his field, with 42,000 barrels pumped daily.
“42,000 barrels of crude pumped out daily. Theft still takes away about 18 per cent of production,” he stated.
Asked who is behind the theft, Elumelu tressed the need for the government to identify and address the problem.
He said, “This is oil theft, we’re not talking about stealing a bottle of Coke you can put in your pocket. The government should know, they should tell us. Look at America — Donald Trump was shot at and quickly they knew the background of who shot him. Our security agencies should tell us who is stealing our oil. You bring vessels to our territorial waters and we don’t know?”
KanyiDaily also reported that the dispute between Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) over crude oil supply took a new turn on Friday.
