A Naval Show of Force

Nigerian Navy rattles its sabres.

A Naval Show of Force

Chiemelie Ezeobi who was part of the recent Exercise Treasure Guard, a show of force by the Nigerian Navy at the Bight of Benin, writes that it was targeted at among other things, reinforcing a zero tolerance for maritime illegalities in the country’s territorial domain.

For a show of force, it was long overdue given the industrial scale at which Nigeria keeps losing its scarce oil resources to crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism. According to a Chatham House report, an estimate of about 100,000 barrels per day, valued at N1.18 billion are stolen daily, which when translated amounts to N433.62 billion annually.

It is also pertinent to note that the statistics did not include the amount of oil suspected to have been stolen from export pipelines, cost of oil spillage cleanup, loss of income to fishing communities and environmental degradation. The report blamed the alarming scale of oil theft to poor law enforcement presence in the waterways.

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Source: thisdaylive.com