Oil Theft: Case Of Onshore And Offshore Thieves

The issue of offshore oil theft took centre stage in the last two weeks as if it is a newfound channel of corruption in Nigeria. But it is not. It was a diversionary or cover-up for inefficiency in the management of oil production and distribution. The country managers are so used to free money from oil proceeds such as taxes, rents and levies that generating revenue through production will always turn out to be a failure. That is why refineries are supposedly not working and, instead of NNPC investing in new ones for operation and revenue generation, have to perch on Dangote refinery for partnership so as to benefit from the company’s revenue. NNPC, in its current status, is a public corporation deemed private. It can invest in its own refinery or go into partnership with local and foreign investors to revive and operate the existing ones instead of buying into purely private concerns.

Back to the offshore oil theft. What really is the noise about? Is it not the counterpart of onshore corruption? Is the noise related to jealousy that offshore stealing would negatively affect the amount of money available for stealing onshore? Unless oil bunkering is not part of the offshore oil theft; I can remember clearly that bunkering has been part of discussions on the oil sector since the early 1970s when oil became the new major source of revenue in the country. We were told that top military personnel and politicians remain the major stakeholders in the business. That has always been the case since the Second Republic. However, it implies that we are not dealing with ghosts but living beings and they can be arrested if it’s truly desired.

Nigeria has always been as lucky as a prodigal daughter. We may not be so lucky this time around. Any time the country seemed to be having problems with her finances with consequent hard times, nature would cause an oil boom to emerge and we would take advantage by increasing the output and benefit from the attendant high prices. Thus, swelling our reserves and reinventing our swagger. This time around, we have become so weak and forsaken that we cannot even meet the original quota of 2.3 mbd from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. There is even improved demand for our gas and we are caught up in inertia. Some Nigerians would ask rhetorically: whom did we offend? We offended ourselves. William Shakespeare would say that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves. And that is the truth. Any country that romances with rent-seeking activities (instead of work) and with corruption will lose touch with production, productivity and ingenuity but would embrace laziness, greed and crass opportunism. Even when the opportunity comes, the country would be too weak to take advantage of the situation. We are now at the point in which the onshore thieves want to wage war against the offshore thieves. Can we really account for the oil that was not stolen on the sea but sold and gave us revenue? What do we have to show for it besides poverty and massive debt?

Selçuk Akçay affirms that corruption reduces economic growth, retards long-term foreign and domestic investments, enhances inflation, depreciates national currency, reduces expenditures for education and health, increases military expenditures, misallocate talent to rent-seeking activities, increases income inequality and poverty, reduces tax revenue, increases child and infant mortality rates, distort the fundamental role of government and undermines the legitimacy of government and of the market economy. This is typically Nigeria.

When corruption is allowed to thrive uncontrollably at the top as it is presently in Nigeria, it moves down the ladder so rapidly that it becomes an endemic disease that only a revolution, devoid of morality, can cleanse the society and lead them to better living conditions. Such levels of corruption require more than spirituality for society to survive. In fact, such a society deceives itself by promoting religious bigotry which in essence sometimes serves as another avenue for exploitation without light at the end of the tunnel. All the reference to God for assistance in this country is deceitful. God has given us human and physical resources as well as talents. Jesus told us about the ‘Parable of the talents.” We cannot bury our talents and expect God to answer our prayers. So, let’s go to work. Let us embrace production.

Just because Shell moved out, or stopped production, we cannot meet up with oil production as required and just because Dunlop stopped producing tires, we have to depend on importation of the products. After over fifty years of oil production we cannot take over or indigenise oil production to fill the gap created! We cannot refine our oil and take advantage of all the by-products attached to the crude oil. Those who use crude methods to get what they need from the crude oil are tagged illegal refiners. Instead of helping them to standardise and modernise we pursue them to the bush, just because the corrupt officials will not get anything out of such operations.

The lesson to learn from our present inability to meet the oil production and demand for gas is that we must depend on ourselves. It should be clear that we cannot depend on other countries and businesses to develop our economy. We must depend on our production and productivity. We must invest in our economy and our human resources in particular. We cannot do that with our present attitude toward education. Government feels unconcerned with half of the universities in the country closed. People demonstrating extraordinary talents through creation of science-based machines and equipment are ignored until they are picked up by entrepreneurs or talent-hunters from other countries. The country has no national plan on where the country should be in the next 20 to 50 years.

All over the country, we see Chinese firms constructing roads, airports and railways. That is the outcome of the Chinese government’s investments in its human resources after the 1949 revolution when the literacy level in China was barely 20%; today with a population of 1.4 billion (about seven times Nigeria’s population), the literacy level is over 95 per cent. Possibly in another 15 to 20 years we will be calling on the Chinese to come and maintain these infrastructures!

The children we refused to train along with our children in the past are now easily recruited into banditry and Boko Haram to torment us and our children today. In future, the children we refuse to give adequate training today will give our children nightmares because the country’s economy will largely be in the hands of mediocre workers we have created selfishly and production will be weighed down by inefficiency and low productivity. We have the largest youths in Africa and possibly in the developing world and that gives us the opportunity to prepare them for future dominance in the world as the youths of China are doing today with technological knowledge.

Does this country really know how much oil is produced and how much is lifted daily besides what the managers are being told by foreign explorers? How accurate are we with the figures for stolen oil? Does the country have oil monitoring equipment controlled by Nigerians? Do we have intelligence units of maritime and security manned by Nigerians? These and more are the questions we need to ask to move forward. More appropriately, the country must invest part of the money generated from oil to improve the production and distribution in the oil sector and reduce offshore oil theft. The country needs to look at how to improve the conditions of those who engage in ‘illegal’ refineries through training, capital empowerment and refinement support rather than pushing them further into the sea and invariably causing deep-sea oil spillage and environmental degradation.