Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment, Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta), has alleged that the military destroyed illegal vessels conveying stolen crude oil in a bid to convey the evidence on the crude oil theft.
The husband of popular actress Regina Daniels said this in Abuja, while stressing that the destroyed vessels would have served as evidence against the perpetrators of the act.
Nwoko described the destruction as senseless, suggesting that the military are accomplices and compromised.
He stated, “What is the point? It does not make any sense.
“You know, if somebody is found in possession of stolen goods, do you say, oh, the way to deal with this is to destroy it? No. You take it from them, you document it, you preserve it, you charge the culprits.
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“And then you produce that in evidence against them in court and ultimately return that product to the owner.”
Speaking further, the lawmaker, who is also a member of the Senate Committee, Upstream Petroleum, added that the only reason the military destroyed vessels apprehended for crude oil theft/lifting was to destroy evidence because there was a compromise.
“Well, I think the military is complicit. You know they do this because some of them might have compromised.
“They have been bought over because to load this kind of commodity vessels- the crude – it takes weeks sometimes because of the size of the vessels, it takes time.
“So it’s not as if you just come one hour, you load it, and then you run. So it takes time to get to the point of loading, and most of them are actually loaded from the official platforms.
“So who are those involved? Who are those managing those platforms? The oil companies, The producing companies, NNPC officials, the police, may be all of them are involved,” he added.