Nigeria loses N1.18bn to oil theft daily, says Navy

The Nigerian Navy has disclosed that the nation’s crude oil valued at N1.18 billion is stolen on a daily basis. This comes as the service is seeking the release of the sum of N4 billion being the balance of its 2014 capital appropriation to enable it fully execute its budget.

Speaking before the Senate Committee on Navy on the 2014 budget implementation and 2015 budget on Tuesday, the chief of naval staff, Usman Jibrin, said that the above figure translates to N433.62 billion annually. Jibrin, who was represented by the chief of logistics, Peter Akomaye Agba, attributed the loss to poor law enforcement. The figure, he said, excludes crude oil stolen from the export pipelines, cost of oil spillage clean-up, loss of income to the fishing communities and environmental degradation.

His words: “The Nigerian Navy is constitutionally tasked with the protection of our maritime assets, and recently, the Chatham House revealed that Nigerian crude oil is being stolen on an industrial scale. It is conservatively estimated that about 100,000 barrels per day valued at N1.18 billion is stolen daily due to poor law enforcement, which translates to N433.62 billion annually.”