A former President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Chief Asari Dokubo has given insight into why the oil theft business cannot abate easily saying it is more lucrative than the illicit drug business even as he gives his verdict on the three leading political candidates in the forthcoming elections. He answered questions on Channels Television Sunrise Daily, monitored by David Lawani

Why is the persistence of crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region?

A lot of people justify the activities of these criminals because of the plight of the people of the Niger Delta. They try to justify the fact that the oil belongs to them, which is true. Those who hold this view believe they should have access right to these resources, which is also true. But sad enough, a group of people from outside the Niger Delta going to an alliance with some elements, become business partners and they are stealing our resources. And in stealing these resources, they inflict environmental ‘genocide’ on the people. They inflict economic ‘genocide’ on the people because the mainstay, as an Ijaw man, I am from Ogboma in Kalabari, is fishing. The mainstay of the economy of the people of Ijaw is fishing. The discharge from their illegal activities taken with tankers outside or what they called kpofaya artisan refinery outside, the discharge the release out doesn’t meet international standards in the oil industry. So discharge residue into the sea. And this affects marine life. Kill everything. Our people can no longer fish. These people are not up to one per cent of the population.

Who are these people, you are talking about?
The people from the region are being funded by outsiders. The people who bring this big tanker are not Niger Deltans. If they are, they will feel it. Maybe those who have access to government and government money. Because to get a tanker from here, to Togo or Ghana, or Côte d’Ivoire because this is where the stolen oil is sold. Some government officials know about this thing. You need close to $1m to get a tanker to steal this oil. There is a modern vessel. It is anchored outside the Nigerian territorial waters. Then there is a feeder’s vessel. This one’s 2000 tons or 3000 tons flat bottom or so on. To get into the creeks get this thing and they bring it in a shuttle to feed most of these tankers. And it will take up to one month. 2000 tons is loaded. The highest that can go into the creeks, a flat bottom vessel is 3000 tons. 3000 tons is bigger than this your China television house. Self-propel barge. They go to the well and fetch directly to the wellhead. This is where the mega money is. They now take this shuttle vessel and the modal one which is like a one million barrel. So calculate 2000. If they have up to 4 or 5 people Ijaws, or Niger Delta because the majority of the low-level involvement are Ijaw people. My Ijaw people. They now load. Where is the security? Where is the Navy? The customs? NIMASA? These are questions people should be able to ask. This doesn’t concern the NNPC, because we always play this blame game. This one doesn’t concern the ones at the discharging point which is the terminal.

Which agency is supposed to take care of this discharging point?
At the discharging point, there are so many agencies. Military intelligence is there. Different departments of NNPC are there. NIMASA. But we are now talking of the one outside that is officially stealing these resources. “Korokoro thief nai them they tief”. Now, this vessel say 2000 to 3000 say they have three shuttles. They go from this manifold or well heads and are discharged outside Nigerian territorial waters at night. They start at 8 pm and by 2pm they have finished loading. Then they go outside the territorial and they discharge. So, calculate if it is a 1 million barrel tanker or a 500000 barrel tanker, and calculate how many days or weeks, or months it will take to fill a supertanker like that. During this period, are we pretending that security is not there? Or that the Navy is not there? NIMASA is not there?

So, these security agencies know something that the public doesn’t know.
They do. We should not be doing hide and seek as if this thing is rocket science. We don’t know what is happening. They do know what is happening. I cannot say much about what happened at the official Forcados, Escravos, Bonny terminal, and Ibom terminals. I cannot say. Because I don’t work in NNPC. But we know that racketeering is going on there in those terminals. We have seen it.
Can this happen without collusion from insiders in the NNPC?
How can that happen without collusion? With people colluding with them? That is why the GMD of NNPC, Mr. Mele Kyari, said his life is in danger. The life of everybody who comes out to confront them is in danger. It is people like us that they cannot threaten. They cannot do anything. Are you not afraid of dying? That is the way same they are afraid of dying too. So, if you think you are coming to get me, then sorry for you. Because if you pull the trigger first, maybe you get me but if you fail that is it. Those big men like GMD in NNPC and so on. These things are happening and they say their lives are in danger. It is true. You make more money from stealing oil than going into drugs. So, why do you do nothing they just load? Then you come to the artisan refinery. They call it kpofire. They cook this product. In a very crude way, they tried to refine it. After refining this tankers come over. Are they hidden? Are they not plying the road? When they carry their cargo, do they hide them? No. And there you have the IG monitoring team on the road, civil defence, regular police, and army checkpoints, are they not seeing these people?

The decision that the NNPC took to award these contracts to protect these pipelines to Government Ekpemupolo, is it going to work?
It is the will. For instance, when the government came out with this policy to change the naira, it triggers a fall in the foreign currency for a few days. Not up to a week, but all of a sudden the will to pursue it to the end was not there. And the naira started declining again. There must be a will because the people are suffering. The will to sustain it is what we are talking about. It is not who the contract is given to. The contract was given to the late Captain Hosa Okunbo’s company and the company of Government Ekpemupolo. It is not about who you give the contract to. The people in NNPC must have the will. From what I see because I say things very raw. You might not like the way I express myself because I say my truth. It is kokolo because I say it is very raw. From what the GMD of NNPC has said, even though they didn’t give me it, I am entitled to it. What he has done going to that extent shows that there is something deeper and different from what is happening now. They have been existing over the years. And nobody bothered. Everybody knows it. I know it. Tompolo knows it. Even the people in NNPC know it. That pipes are connected and they like sucking blood that leeches and sucking the blood of the people. So everybody knows it. So if the GMD of NNPC now came out for the first time to say these things are getting exposed you must see that something different is now happening. I disagree when Tompolo was given the contract. I thought it was wrong. You cannot give where I come from to somebody else. I know the place better than he knows it. But I am an Ijaw man. The Ijaw nation intervened and said please this is not why we should quarrel. Since this government came, we have survived. I didn’t die. So why would you quarrel with your brother because of this?

Are you working together now?
Yes, we are. We talk. Last Sunday we spoke. We are supposed to talk on Tuesday because Fara Dagogo was to meet him. We talk. Even though I am not part of it. He seeks my advice. And I give him freely. See the Ijaw nation is greater than all of us. Whatever I am today it is the Ijaw nation that made me by the grace of God. The Ijaw nation gave me a platform to become president of the Ijaw Youth Council.

When you say there has to be a will from the NNPC to stop this. So, is it that the GMD of NNPC will give a contract and the same people in NNPC will sabotage it?
They have been awarding this contract from time immemorial. The GMD of NNPC himself or NNPC top shots like Bala Uti, on TV, I see them right at the spot where these things are happening. The scene of this theft. They go there. And this has never happened. The discovery that has taken place and has been exposed had never happened. This is the first time in the history of this country that this is happening. When you see something different you should appreciate it. When Goodluck was there, Rivers state was given to me, Ateke Tom, Fara Dagogo, and Egberi Papa. We had a joint company. And oil theft reduce to almost zero. But this commitment that is going on now was not there. We didn’t see the NNPC officials coming to go and see to reveal these things. So, whatever we did was something. And then we worked for only one year and the contract was cancelled.

Why was it cancelled?
For no reason. Towards the election, for three months they didn’t pay us. So, it was Buhari who came because everybody was afraid. I took lawyers and we consistently wrote. And they gave us 30 per cent of the value of our contract. But 70 per cent with the lawyer whatever happened they took it. But what I am trying to say is this, at this moment they say they are going to fly a drone. It is all rubbish. They were not doing anything. They said they have a control room. It is rubbish. They were just collecting the money. This money we are talking about is in billions..it is good that you gave it to the people from the area. The people who are affected by the activities of these thieves. Whose activities do not meet international standard practices? There are spillages. There are destruction and devastation of the environment. Some of them are even bunkerers. They are involved in bunkering. And because what you are offering them is more than what they will get in bunkering they will stop the bunkering.

Does it mean it will be difficult to prosecute anybody given the kind of people that are involved in this crime?

Why? Buhari and Idiagbo first came, and several people were prosecuted. They went to prison. It is the will we are talking about. Several people were prosecuted. Some people like me know an Alhaji in Port Harcourt that was in detention that got blind. He came out blind. It was not this sort of magnitude that we are looking at. You need to see the environment and what they have done to it. Even the multi-national firms didn’t do as much damage to the environment as we have done with our own hands.

How about the clean-up that is going on now?
It is the most crooked and roguish programme that has ever been brought. How can you say you are cleaning Ogoni land? Is it only Ogoni land that is affected? And we are all watching. And when you talk, Ogoni people will attack you. So, we don’t have the right to talk? Go to Owaza in Abia State and see what is happening there. You will cry. Go to Oazi Ebema through Guta and see what is happening in Zombe. You will weep. About a hundred people were killed and they tried to play down the number of the causality. It is a lie. More than almost two hundred people were killed. Because I was there. I have the facts. Go to cutting channels or Bilay. And see what is happening. Go to Kay.

Would you support all those involved including your kinsman to be arrested and prosecuted?
Why not, they should be prosecuted. Because the crime they are committing is going to take generations to correct. We are not going to play with them with kid gloves. Because you want to make money then you want to kill thousands of people? Do you want to impoverish the population? Change the demography and the live hood of the people, as an Ijaw man no land for me to farm. There is no land to do anything. I am a fisherman. You want to change my occupation from what we were from the time memorial. You want to change all that. Because of your greed and the small money you are going to be getting while the bulk of the money is made by people who are just giving you peanuts.

Are the challenges of oil theft humanitarian or lack of will to prosecute those involved, what are the real issues?
Security is number one. That is on the side of the government of Nigeria. It is compromised. In most of the places where bunkering takes place, you will see Nigerian army-housed boats fitted with all the guns. Sometimes, I hear people say the Nigerian army is not properly equipped. It is a lie. They have everything. They are there with speed boats. Gunboats. Drones and Chopper. They are there. When these ships are packed for one month and they are going to take the feeder vessels to feed the mother vessels, the Navy cannot see them. We don’t have a satellite that can capture these things. Are they ants? This is bigger than your studio, bigger than the whole of this building. What is the population of people engaged in this crime against themselves and their people? What is the percentage? They are not up to one per cent. So one per cent should destroy and deprive us? They commit an environmental and economic crimes and genocide against us. Change the demography to all sorts of things. Change the topography and everything.

Are you interested in what is going on in the political space?
Yes, I am.

What do you think about what is going on and the candidates of the parties themselves?
The campaigns in Rivers and many other states like Rivers where I come from are stiffened. The political space is stiffened. It is being closed. By the governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike. But in the presidential election, I am with Bola Tinubu. Because I saw what Tinubu did in Lagos? And the legacy he left behind in Lagos. He was governor of Lagos state. He handed it over to Raji Fashola. Now, we cannot talk about Atiku Abubakar because he has not handled executive power. He was a spare tire. He was Vice president.

What about those who say they want to try new things?
Peter Obi of Labour Party was a governor for eight years like Tinubu. Raji Kwankwaso of NNPP was a governor of Kano state for eight years. So, we compare these three personalities. We leave out Atiku. Because he didn’t have the same executive power. He didn’t exercise executive powers like Tinubu, Obi and Kwankwaso exercised. Tinubu left power and gave it to Fashola. Can you compare Fashola of Lagos to Willy Obiano which Obi picked? Can you? How about the one that Kwankwaso picked in Kano? That succeeded him? You cannot compare it with what happened in Lagos. What of in India? The Indian Congress party. That one family has been dominating? What of in Pakistan? What of the USA? Where we say it is the home of democracy? Where one man Donald Trump I think something is wrong with his head is picking candidates and sponsoring them. If he doesn’t endorse you in the Republican Party you cannot win. When we are talking, we are talking as if we are in isolation. We are not. We look at the records. If you look at the records Tinubu stands out. It is a success story in Lagos.

People are looking at reality. And they feel their lives are not getting better. Why should they continue in the same breath?

Individuals differ. Individuals cannot be tied to a political party. I am an Ijaw man but I am a Muslim. The majority of Ijaw people are Christians and other things. Can you say the Ijaw people who believe in Egbesu or Akaso or go to church because an infinitesimal number of Ijaw people are Muslim? I am just a Muslim. In politics, you look at the individual. Individuals have their traits and distinction. When an individual comes, he comes with his trait to bear on the party. There is nothing wrong with the manifesto of APC. Or PDP. Even Labour Party. I don’t know of NNPP. But it will take an individual to be able to effect the desired needs of the people.

How about people in Lagos who are not happy with what is going on?

Yes. It is all over the world. In the United States of America. Some people are not happy. There are people in Qatar today who are not happy with the policy of the government. There are people in the United Arab Emirates who are talking about what is happening. If you are a visitor to UAE, you will think you are in heaven. So, it has to do with individuals. Lagos has transformed from what it used to be from ghetto, junkyard to a global centre. And one of the biggest economies in whole of Africa. Somebody kick-started it. Somebody laid the foundation

Who do you truly want to win the presidential election in 2023?

I pray Bola Ahmed Tinubu wins.