Navy Officers Involved In Crude Oil Theft Will Be Sanctioned – CNS

Afimag.com –

Prior to the high magnitude of reported cases of crude oil bunkers in Niger Delta region, the Chief of Naval Staff, CNS, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla has vowed to take drastic measures against perpetrators.

Ogalla who disclosed this at the end of a two-day familiarisation tour of Navy commands and facilities in Rivers State, assured that any naval officer caught in illegal oil bunkering or related offences would be punished severely.

According to him, the navy had recorded cases in the past of such crude oil theft and appropriate actions were taken against the officers.

Ogalla explained that over than 97 percent of allegations of crude oil theft against military officers are founded on social media without empirical justification.

“We are going to improve surveillance capability because we want to be able to strike the criminals even before they go into the act. We don’t want to be on the defending side, we want to take the war to the criminals and get them even before they start the act.

“We can only achieve this through proper intelligence and technology. And that is why we are trying to extend the coverage of our maritime domain awareness capability (the Falcon Eye), to the back waters which is the creeks and the riverine areas where most of these activities take place. With that I believe we will achieve the desired objectives”.

“The allegation of involvement of our officers in oil theft is baseless. Anytime we receive such information, we investigate it properly. So far, our investigations have been showing that most of the allegations are not true,” he said.