The Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment, Senator Ned Nwoko, has expressed concerns about the military’s practice of destroying vessels caught transporting illegal goods and stolen crude oil.
According to The PUNCH, he stated that this destruction is an attempt to conceal crucial evidence.
In his view, such actions are illogical, unless those responsible for preventing the crimes are somehow involved or compromised.
Nwoko further emphasized that the vandalism of crude oil pipelines and the destruction of vessels involved in illegal activities are actions that lack a rational explanation.
He said, “What is the point? It does not make any sense.
“You know, if somebody is found in possession of stolen goods, do you say, oh, the way to deal with this is to destroy it? No. You take it from them, you document it, you preserve it, you charge the culprits.
“And then you produce that in evidence against them in court and then ultimately return that product to the owner.”
Senator Ned Nwoko, who is not only a member of the Senate Committee on Environment but also the Senate Committee on Upstream Petroleum, asserted that the military’s decision to destroy vessels captured in crude oil theft or lifting cases is solely to eliminate evidence, which strongly suggests the presence of compromise or collusion.
“Well, I think the military are complicit. You know the reason they do this is because some of them might have compromised.
“They have been bought over because to load this kind of commodity vessels- the crude – it takes weeks sometimes because of the size of the vessels, it takes time.
“So it’s not as if you just come one hour, you load it and then you run. So it takes time to get to the point of loading, and most of them are actually loaded from the official platforms.
“So who are those involved? Who are those managing those platforms? The oil companies, The producing companies, NNPC officials, the police, may be all of them are involved.
“You know what is common with these personnel, I mean the joint task force; within a very short period of time, they are all rich. They are all buying houses or buying cars or buying everything you know. So yeah, they have compromised.
“That is the only reason why I think they cannot wait for the vessels to be investigated, but rather destroy the evidence because they know it can lead to them. They destroy them, they burn them,” Nwoko said.
