By Ambrose Obioma Okehi
Tantita Maritime Security Services Limited, a leading private security contractors of the Nigerian Petroleum Company (NNPC), has called on well meaning Nigerians and maritime stakeholders to join them in the fight against sea robbery, oil theft and other maritime criminalities going on in Nigerian territorial waters.
The company equally says that through its various operations and activities, as a private security operators in combating crude oil theft in Nigeria, it has been able to save for the nation an estimated sum of over $43.2million daily.
Speaking at the maiden edition of Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) Annual Lecture, in Lagos, on Wednesday on a annual lecture topic tagged: “Maritime Security: Emerging Threats and Actionable Steps,” the Executive Director, Tantita Maritime Security Services Limited, Captain Warredi Enisuoh noted that the war against crude oil theft wasn’t an easy one at and that for a full war against this criminslities going on in Niger Delta region all hands must be on deck to tackle and fight this war.
Capt. Warredi Enisuoh, who spend enough time to educate the participants at the annual lecture the danger behind crude oil theft and the effect on the region, saying that the farmlands in the region have been badly destroyed to the level that for 100 years such farmlands would remain useless.
He also highlighted the crucial roles of private security operators even as he noted that pepetrators in crude oil theft have also gone to the extent of planting CCTV cameras on the trees within the creeks to monitor their illicit activities.
The Tantita boss told the participants that: “We have places where grass may not grow for the next 100 years because of crude oil theft and associated activities. In the past, these operators utilized fire to process the crude oil but they realized that security operators have drones and night vision capabilities to see the fire trails. So, they moved to electricity. When they realized we discovered their illicit activities with electric, they translated to phosphoric acid. They pour the crude oil into several drums and pour phosphoric acid and wait for six hours for the acid to convert the crude to diesel that will be fetched from the top.”
Captain Warredi, who is also a former Director of Shipping Development at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), observed that having chased most of the perpetrators of crude oil theft away from the land areas, they moved to the creeks to attack oil well heads.
“They connect hoses from the wellheads into their storage. These transactions usually take place at night as they go to the wellheads with canoes to fetch crude oil without minding the pollution or possibility of fire outbreak. If the pressure isn’t strong enough, they use a reservoir to fetch the oil. Some of these oil connections flow through cassava farms and farm settlements that you wouldn’t suspect to be involved in crude oil theft,” Warredi said.
Commenting on the activities of private security operators in Secure Anchorage Area (SAA), Warredi wondered why a nation would carve out a portion on water like a land and sell it to somebody.
“With SAA, a vessel is entering the place and you say no you cannot enter here because you did not pay. However, the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) declared the right of passage on the waters for vessels? Nigeria is a signatory to that law, so I am sorry if I made mistakes at that time with my conviction about SAA. Nonetheless, I still stand by it. I will never ever entertain the situation in my country where people will pay to access the waters,” Warredi opined.
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