The issue of pipelines vandalism became more pronounced with the unfortunate incident at Jesse in Delta in 1998 when over 1000 Nigerians were roasted because of pipeline explosion while they were scooping fuel.
Since that time it has been a recurrent decimal as hardly can six months go by without any serious records of pipeline vandalism recorded especially in the southern part of the country.
Several deaths have occurred on account of subsequent pipeline explosion as well as the environmental degradation that follows. It is often an harvest of death in Arepo in Ogun state each time the vandals are unlucky and their activities result in fire outbreak, at Atlast cove, Ijegun, in Lagos State, Osisioma in Abia State the story is all the same.
In the oil-rich Niger Delta, the situation is not different as the vegetation and rivers in that area have turned to different things. The rivers are no longer drinkable any because they are polluted.
The issue of pipeline vandalism is more than 30 years old. The problem is, why has each government that comes to power failed to address this issue and deal with it once and for all.
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With modern technology the issue could have been brought to the barest minimum and reduce the human catastrophe often associated with it by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The oba of Lagos urged the group managing director of NNPC, Mele Kyari to employ modern technology that could easily prompt an alert of notify security officers if anybody . This is not the first time NNPC top shots would agree that they would adopt such technology and failed. He remarked that nobody is exonerated in this act of pipeline vandalism. He accused the communities, security agents and even officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
Funsho Kupolokun, Abubakar Yar’Adua, Austin Oniwon, Andrew Yakubu have all at one time or the order during their tenures agreed that the way to go is to install instruments that would easily detect any infraction on the pipelines but failed to do anything.
Nigeria is today suffering from the inactions of the government as innocent people are been killed with properties worth several million of naira burnt, because of some greedy fellows that want to make quick money.
It is high time the government address the issue of pipeline vandalism to a logic conclusion, if not, it would keep repeating itself with its attendant human and material losses. Drones can be deplore as part of the surveillance system for the pipelines
The security operatives and the communities around the pipelines are also accomplice most times. The government must devise a means of checking mating the activities of security men also help themselves with trucks of stolen petroleum products.
The government, NNPC most take some drastic decisions against both the perpetrators and their accomplices to serve as deterrents to others. But more importantly, the necessary technologies should be deployed to monitor the pipelines
