Military destroys vessels to hide evidence of crude oil theft- Ned Nwoko

Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta), the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment, claims that the military destroys ships that are captured transporting contraband and stolen crude oil in order to hide or obscure evidence.

Nwoko made these remarks in an interview with the Nigerian News Agency (NAN) in Abuja.

He emphasised that unless the people supposed to stop the crime were complicit and compromised, it makes no sense to delete evidence that may be used to prove the crime was done.

Read Also: 2 kidnapped military personnel are freed in Katsina

What’s the big deal? That defies logic in any way.

Do you think that destroying stolen property is the best course of action when someone is discovered in possession of it? Nope. You take it from them, record it, keep it safe, and bring charges against those responsible.

“And you present that as proof against them in court and finally give the product back to its owner,” he stated.

The senator, who also serves on the Senate Committee on Upstream Petroleum, continued, saying that there was a deal and that’s the only reason the military destroyed ships that were suspected of stealing or lifting crude oil.

I believe that the military is involved. Since some of them may have compromised, you are aware that they act in this way.

They have been acquired since it can take weeks at a time to load this type of commodity vessel—the crude—due to the size of the vessels.

Therefore, it isn’t as though you simply arrive, load it, and leave. As a result, loading takes some time, and the majority of them do so from the official platforms.

So who are the parties concerned? Who is in charge of those platforms? He said, “There’s a chance that everyone is involved, including the police, NNPC executives, producing firms, and oil companies.