Pipeline security: Soldiers to replace ex-militants

The men of the Nigerian military are to take over the security of the nation’s oil pipelines.

The Acting Director, Defence Information, Col. Rabe Abubakar, who said in a statement on Tuesday, added that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu, met with the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, on how to work out modalities to get the military to protect the strategic national assets.

He quoted the NNPC’s GMD as having said that he visited the CDS as a follow up to a proposal the corporation presented to President Muhammadu Buhari, to have the Army Corps of Engineering to maintain and secure the nation’s pipelines.

Abubakar also quoted the NNPC’s GMD as having said that the corporation was taking a holistic step to ensure that the best hands were used to protect the pipelines.

He said that the NNPC was also engaging the services of the Navy and the Air Force in collaborative efforts to secure the nation’s pipelines and to prevent the theft of the country’s oil.

Abubakar said that Kachikwu solicited for the support of the CDS in the fight against crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism and other maritime crime.

He was said to have told the CDS that the NLC was making moves to procure more boats for the Navy for patrol operations and trackers for the monitoring of vessels coming into the country.

Kachikwu was also quoted as saying that the NNPC had also reached out to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadiq Abubakar, on the issue.

“We are trying to equip the Navy a lot more with boats for patrols; we are trying to get trackers and central system to be able to monitor every vessel that comes in and out of the country.

“We have equally spoken with the Chief of Air Staff on other effective ways of collaboration,” he was quoted as having said.

The NNPC’s GMD was said to have told the CDS that the country was losing 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day which was one-fifth of the total production in the country.

Kachikwu, who called for more efforts to address the incident of crude of theft, said that the ugly trend had reduced since he became the GMD of the NNPC.

Comments

DEFECTIONS: Why Saraki, Dogara Others Must Heed Sen. Ibrahim's Call by Comrade Nwokoma Ndubuisi M.

The gale of defections in the National Assembly last week was followed by an advice from no one else than Sen. Abu Ibrahim that the Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki as well as the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and others in the fold of the All Progressives Congress APC that are still masquerading in the party should resign their membership of the party. This call which also implies that they resign their positions as leaders of the various arms of the National Assembly is yet to be complied with by those concerned as at the time of writing this piece Whatever their reasons for still staying put in the party may be, the fact of the matter is that their continued stay in the party has become a sore which must be extricated from the body. As I watched through the proceedings of the defections on national television, I wept for the country for producing such leaders that lack morality despite all the party has given them politically which they ordin...

Rivers Governmnet, PDP Disagree Over $280 million Looan

The Rivers State Government and the Peoples Democratic Party in the state are currently at loggerheads over the request by the state Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, for a $280m loan for water and sanitation projects. While the state PDP said that the latest request for loan by the state government was unnecessary due to the resources accruing to the state through the federal allocation and internally generated revenue, the government said it was not true that the funds were to be used for 2015 elections. The state House of Assembly had on Monday endorsed Amaechi’s request for loan for water supply and sanitation projects. But the state PDP, in a statement, signed by the Special Adviser to its Chairman, Mr. Jerry Needam, said the request for loan was aimed at punishing the governor’s successor in 2015. The party called on members of the House of Assembly, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the African Development Bank and the World Bank not to honour the loan re...

2019: Northern youths kick as Northwest APC lawmakers endorse Buhari

The leadership of the Arewa Youth Forum on Monday said President Muhammadu Buhari does not deserve any endorsement for the 2019 presidency. Reacting to a purported endorsement by some serving All Progressives Congress’s lawmakers from the Northwest in Kaduna, the AYF’s National President, Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, said Buhari was not fit to return as president in 2019. The AYF argued that with the killing spree all over the country, especially in the North, Buhari should serve his mandatory four years term and quit the stage for another Northerner. Gujungu noted that one sour point about President Buhari’s 2019 ambition was his claim that the killings across the country were being carried out by “desperate politicians”, yet he had not arrested even a single suspect. The AYF president, therefore, said Nigerians should blame the president for the attacks on innocent citizens. The AYF boss who spoke to our correspondent on phone on Monday, said the President’s cl...

newsman

Search This Blog