A Puzzling Country, Nigeria – by Frank Ofili

In 2004, a Russian vessel loaded with stolen Nigerian crude oil was detained at Apapa port and the crew put on trial in court.

While the trial was going on, the vessel suddenly disappeared with the stolen crude. Two Navy Admirals were demoted and subsequently dismissed from service for complicity in the disappearance.

But Nigerian crude oil theft continued unabated. In fact, it assumed an unprecedented dimension when a new international black-market route for stolen Nigerian crude known as the Togo Triangle emerged.

Wikipedia describes the Togo Triangle “as an offshore market for stolen oil off the coast of Nigeria and Togo near the Niger Delta”. Noted for the presence of pirates, the Triangle has been compared to an open-air drug market for trade in illegal crude oil.

Seeing an opportunity to have a military base in Africa, the US Government approached late President Umar Musa Yar Adua to grant it permission to set up a military base (US Africa Command, Africom) off the coast of Nigeria to police what it called “unpoliced waters”. The US cited, among other things, the infamous Togo Triangle as reason for its request.

But President Yar Adua saw the US request for what it really was, and (rightly) turned it down. Disappointed, the US moved Africom to Stuttgart, Germany, where it has remained till this day.

And crude theft in the Niger Delta continued. And Yar Adua died. And Jonathan took over.

In an apparent effort to stem the tide of crude theft, Jonathan administration awarded Government Ekpemukpolo Tompolo, ex-militant, contract to secure crude oil pipelines in the Niger Delta. Jonathan was roundly condemned for rewarding his bandit-kins-man.

Nevertheless, it is not clear if this solved the problem of crude oil theft, but on assumption of office as President in 2015, an outraged Buhari cancelled the contract with Tompolo and transferred the responsibility for securing oil installations to the military. Buhari said it was unacceptable that security for the main economic live wire of Nigeria should be left in the hands of an individual.

And then things swiftly took a different turn. A faceless shadowy group known as the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) emerged and started bombing oil installations. The Nigerian economy was brought to its knees. Tompolo was declared wanted, having failed to appear in court over another matter with government that was in litigation.

Seeing the danger the NDA and its activities posed to the Nigerian economy, Buhari’s Federal Government soft-pedalled. Tompolo was not only given soft-landing, but also amnesty.

But crude oil theft and illegal artisanal refineries continued under the watchful eye of the Nigerian Military. To checkmate it, the same Buhari government has now restored Tompolo’s pipeline security contract, now worth N48 billion a year. It is yet unclear what the role of the military would be going forward as long as pipeline security is concerned.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that it didn’t take long after Tompolo was re-awarded his pipeline security contract than NNPC, Nigeria’s hitherto inefficient and ineffective oil behemot, announced that it has uncovered a 4 and half kilometre illegal pipeline from Forcados terminal to the sea, and a loading port that had operated undetected in the last nine years.

It is not clear if the intel for this discovery has anything to do with Tompolo, or NNPC’s new-found efficiency, having recently been commericialised. What we know is that this illegal pipeline and loading port could not have existed for 9 years without the Military and officials and top guns of NNPC and Government being aware of it.

As Nigerians across the country express outrage over the discovery, the question everyone is asking is, what has the Nigerian Navy been securing with its billion-dollar gunboats? What happens now? Who is to be accountable? Knowing Nigeria the way I do, I posit that this may be the last we hear of the case.

This country is a puzzle!

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