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Lagos community where policemen, NSCDC officers vandalise oil pipelines around four major police stations

Usman Baba, Odumosu and Eweka

IGP, Usman Baba; Hakeem Odumosu and NSCDC Lagos commandant, Eweka

In this special report, SAMSON FOLARIN investigates the frequent pipeline vandalism in the Isheri-Olofin, Igando area of Lagos State. With evidence, he establishes that security agencies are not only unwilling to stop the menace, but are also part of the reasons the problem has persisted

It was Christmas Eve. December 24, 2021. Most residents on Gloryland Estate, Isheri Olofin, Igando area of Lagos State, South-West Nigeria, had retired to bed, waiting for dawn to kick off preparation for the Yuletide.

But around 12.30am, the sleepy neighbourhood erupted in chaos. Explosions! Fire had broken out from the pipeline point in the wetland and consumed the languid shrubs and trees. Within seconds, balls of fire powered by oil rolled down, devouring the only rickety wooden bridge that connected the community with its neighbours, with threats to advance to the many clusters of houses nearby. Anxious parents and families shrieked and searched for loved ones in frenetic strains to escape the raging fire.

Scene of the December 24 explosion

As the sprouting inferno followed the water channels now overtaken by spilled oil, some of the residents courageously mobilised and confronted the fire. A community leader with a borehole pumped water as the youth and elderly joined in keeping the fire at bay.

At sunrise, when the fire had ebbed and tired residents resting from the overnight battle, news reports from the statement of an emergency management agency started making the rounds that high tension cables which landed in the pipeline area caused the explosion.

“How can anyone say such a thing?” Emmanuel, one of the youths who participated in the rescue operation, queried.

“In fact, it was the other way round. The explosion was caused by vandals who spilled fuel. It was a loud blast that made the electrical grid fall, which caused some sparks. There is a distance between where the cables fell and where the explosions actually occurred,” a trader close to the scene added.

Her observation was confirmed by many residents.

The community’s wooden bridge

Investigations by our correspondent also showed that there was heavy spillage of oil along the path of the explosion.

However, none of the suspected vandals was arrested.

On December 29, five days after that incident, there was another fire incident along the same pipeline area.

Our correspondent watched on Wednesday as technicians laboured to put out the fire, which according to residents began in the early hours of the day.

At exactly 10.28am, the fire from the leak suspected to be from the activities of vandals was stopped.

Like in the previous case, none of the culprits was arrested.

“The only person they arrested was a white-garment church pastor whom they spotted around the area. One happened on December 24, another December 29, five days apart, and they cannot find the real culprits?” a resident queried.

How could frequent vandalism occur at a point heavily guarded with a security post of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, an outpost of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, and at least four police stations all within touching distance?

The NNPC bland security post, our correspondent observed, is atop a hill that will make it easy for a sentinel to see activities at the pipeline point usually tapped by vandals. It will take less than two minutes to get to the area.

The NSCDC office, which is at the entrance to the NNPC Pipeline Road and usually swarming with officers, is less than five minutes to where hoodlums usually break the pipeline.

There are 11 police stations under the Area M Police Command, Idimu. They are Ikotun, Igando, Idimu, Isheri Osun, Shasha, Oke-Odo, Meiran, Ipaja, Gowon Estate, Ayobo and Alagbado police stations.

Area M Police Command, Idimu
Area M Police Command, Idimu

Google map indicated that in a normal traffic situation, the area command is the closest to reach the vandalised point within 10 minutes drive. This is followed by the Isheri Oshun Police Station, which is also 10 minutes drive away.

Officers at the Ikotun Police Station will get to the scene within 17 minutes, while Igando Police Station will arrive there in 20 minutes. The Ipaja Police Station will get to the scene within 24 minutes. At night when there is little or no traffic, most of the stations will get to the scene in far less time.

Security agents as vandals, accomplices

Iya Alaje, as she is fondly called, has lived on Gloryland Estate, Isheri Olofin, for several years. She also knows that the community battles frequent pipeline vandalism despite the heavy security presence there.

The mother of five has always suspected that the frequent vandalism in the area, which most times comes with heavy civilian casualties, cannot happen without a compromise of the security architecture.

On August 19, 2021, her suspicion was confirmed.

On that day, she was in her house around noon when a strong smell of fuel wafted into the room and immediately made her lose interest in the bowl of rice before her. She stepped onto her balcony to see.

“I saw some armed officers of the NSCDC. A few moments later, I saw some men who were not in uniform. There was also a truck, a tricycle and a bus, all parked on the road.

“Apparently, they had been mining fuel from the bush and loading them into the vehicles. At a point, a policewoman who stayed within the neighbourhood saw them and went to query the illegal operation. They took her away from the spot and walked towards her house.

“Some minutes afterwards, the NSCDC officers returned to the spot to continue what they were doing. A few moments later, some policemen arrived at the scene to join them. At that point, the policewoman returned to her house,” she said.

Iya Alaje said she watched for several hours as the policemen and NSCDC officials and the other men combined to pack the fuel in the bush, trudge through the swamp and loaded several vehicles.

The exercise did not end till midnight.

Another resident, Engineer, said he saw the officers on August 20, a day after Iya Alaje made her observation.

According to him, the loading of the fuel lasted several days.

“I suspect that the fuel was loaded in big sacks and jerrycans overnight by vandals who were working with the uniformed men. So, they just came to take them away.

“Around the bush area where they were bringing the fuel from is where they usually break the pipe. Whenever this happens, the whole community reeks of fuel.

“I know that they ship the fuel in the dead of the night. But this time, the fuel was much, so they had to do it in the afternoon as well,” Engineer added.

Investigations by The PUNCH, together with pictorial and video evidence obtained by this reporter, showed that no fewer than three uniformed policemen and five NSCDC officers were involved in that operation.

A photo captured the commercial vehicle used to convey the fuel. It had the name ‘Banuso,’ a Yoruba word for talking to oneself or soliloquy. The yellow bus also had the number plate, EK 154 3Y.

Many sacks and jerrycans of what appeared to be fuel were being taken from the bush and loaded into the vehicle, truck and tricycle, which was designed with black spots like a leopard skin.

Some of the youths were not putting on clothes.

In one of the video clips, two security agents walked towards a man who emerged from the bush, tired. His body appeared soaked in oil as he twirled in discomfort and held his ears.

He sat on the ground, breathing heavily while the officers comforted him and another man poured water on his head.

Some of the policemen in the video

There was a brief argument among the group, as two of the policemen also had what appeared to be a disagreement. One of the officers could be seen having a telephone conversation with an unknown caller.

After the vehicles left, two of the policemen waited to look after the leftover fuel.

The PUNCH refrained from releasing the videos for the safety of those who supplied them, as the angles of the shots may reveal their location and endanger their lives.

However, some of the visuals were shared with the authorities.

Our correspondent reached out to both the police and the NSCDC to find out if there was any official operation in the area at the time.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Adekunle Ajisebutu, declined comments over the matter.

The state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, said issues regarding pipeline operations were not under his purview as he referred our correspondent to the Inspector-General of Police Task Force on Pipeline Vandalism.

The Commander of the task force, Usman Jibrin, said he did not know anything about the incident, adding that only the CP or the PPRO could comment on it.

The PUNCH contacted the spokesperson for the NSCDC in Lagos, Seun Abolurin, to ask if there was any official record of fuel recovery around the time in the area, and he said none.

“I can tell you we did not recover anything in that area,” he stressed.

Abolurin insisted that only the NSCDC was constitutionally authorised to take custody of recovered fuel, arrest and prosecute pipeline vandals.

Our correspondent shared in confidence the video evidence with two top senior officers for examination and expert opinion.

They both confirmed that the men in the video were proper policemen.

“They are real officers o,” a senior police officer at the force headquarters said.

A woman, who lives in the community, said it was an open secret that security agents were part of those vandalising the pipeline.

She claimed to have seen them many times mining fuel from the pipeline.

“They pass me every time. They know about the pipeline explosions and they are the reason the vandalism will not stop. We are tired of talking and shouting because the government does not do anything at the end of the day. Maybe when everybody dies from pipeline explosions they will wake up,” she added.

Implicating precedents

Residents in the Iju area of Lagos State recently recalled when vandals broke into their estate and vandalised an NNPC pipeline in May 2020.

The hoodlums, five days before the operation, dug a hole at the point where they were to siphon the fuel, somewhere in the mechanic village.

This reporter, who spoke to witnesses, was informed that a guard saw the vandals and by the following morning, he informed residents, who alerted the NSCDC official in charge of the area, identified as Mrs Osho.

Osho, in turn, told The PUNCH that she alerted her bosses at the state NSCDC headquarters at Alausa, Ikeja.

The residents were alarmed that despite their report of the imminent threat, there was no improvement in security in the community or around the site of the pipeline.

Instead, some policemen stormed the area and arrested guards in the community.

The day after the suspicious arrests, the vandals struck and siphoned no fewer than four tankers of 33,000 litres of fuel, valued at the time at N16.5m.

More than a year after that incident, nobody was prosecuted or sanctioned.

But in October 2014, five policemen were arrested by the Nigerian Navy for involvement in pipeline vandalism in the Majidun, Ikorodu area of Lagos State.

A policeman, who was formerly attached to the Area M Police Command, Idimu, said the involvement of security agencies in vandalism was not in doubt.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recalled that some policemen from the Ikotun division had been caught in the past and the matter got the attention of the Force Headquarters, Abuja.

“The Divisional Police Officer was queried and mandated to produce the culprits. They were taken to Abuja, where some of them were tried. Some of them were dismissed and a few others were acquitted and released. What I believe is that criminals cannot operate without the knowledge of some people. That is all I will tell you,” the source said.

Spillage, death, dirty water

Isheri Olofin is in the Igando area of Lagos State with a history of fuel spillage with the attendant devastation, destructions and deaths.

In April 2018, residents of Fagbenle Estate, Isheri, left their houses after leakage from the pipeline from the NNPC pipeline in the area.

In June 2019, there was pipeline vandalism on Graceland Estate, Isheri. That incident led to an explosion with attendant loss of lives.

In December 2019, there was another vandalism reported near Glory and Diamond Estates, Isheri. The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency reported that two people died in that incident.

In August 2020, the Lagos State Fire Services raised the alarm on the leakage of petrol from the NNPC pipeline on the Atlas Cove-Mosimi System 2B pipeline in Isheri on Peace Estate around 5.41am.

On August 27, 2021, there was another burst of the pipeline in the Igando-Ikotun area. That incident spread panic as fuel spread to the Ikotun market and several houses.

Due to the constant spillage and breakage, with the connivance of security agents, the groundwater in the communities is polluted.

Investigations by The PUNCH show that most residents cannot drink water from their boreholes as petrol stream out of their wells.

The security agents usually take advantage of this and accuse the residents of tapping the pipeline of the NNPC and connecting same to their wells.

Some residents pay heavily to avoid being implicated by the officers, who themselves are complicit.

Findings by this reporter revealed that after most reported cases of pipeline vandalism and fuel leaks, none of the perpetrators was caught or the loot recovered.

Never-ending losses to vandalism

A spokesman for the NNPC, Garba Deen, urged our correspondent to confront security agencies with the evidence of the involvement of their men.

“If you have video evidence, you can share with me and we will subject it to scrutiny,” he added.

Deen lamented that the country was losing a lot to pipeline vandalisation as evidenced in a recent report by the agency.

The NNPC, in the report, said between January and September 2021, Nigeria lost N898.93bn to crude oil losses and repairs of vandalised pipelines, among others.

In July 2021, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, raised the alarm that the country loses 200,000 barrels of crude per day to pipeline destruction, which costs the country N60bn to repair each year.

According to him, between January 2019 and September 2020, 1,161 pipeline points were vandalised in the country. When this is combined with the spills caused by sabotage at production points, the loss rises to over 400,000 barrels per day.

NNPC GMD
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari

The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mele Kyari, said the corporation lost about N51.207bn between 2019 and May 2021.

According to him, pipeline vandals operating along the System 2B axis stole about 307.994 million litres of PMS valued at N41.049bn and in system 2E, about 26 million litres of PMS valued at N3.468bn was lost due to activities of vandals in 2019.

From January to December 2020, he said losses along System 2B amounted to 146.809 million litres of PMS valued at N22.487bn.

He listed some notable hotspot areas as Abagbo, Ikate, Akaraba, Ilashe, Imoren, Ijegun, Ikotun, Baruwa, Oke Odo, Warewa and Ilara.

In the System 2E axis, Kyari said 0.237 million litres of PMS valued at N36.3m were lost in 2020.

From January to May 2021, he said NNPC pipeline segments suffered 203 pipeline breaks with System 2B having 80 pipeline breaks and System 2E, a total of 114 pipeline breaks, with a total cumulative loss of 39 million litres amounting to N5.973bn.

Over 4.5 trillion barrels were said to have been lost to theft and oil spills from 2015 to 2021.

The Minister of the Environment, Mohammed Abubakar, said 3,628 of the 4,919 oil spills recorded between 2015 and 2021 were caused by sabotage of oil thieves.

Over 235,206 barrels of crude have been spilled, causing severe environmental damage, ruining the economy and the livelihoods of the host communities.

Meanwhile, the country’s current average production hovers between 1.34 million bpd and 1.6 million bpd, though its OPEC quota is 1.51 million bpd.

The amount of stolen oil is close to the 562bpd Egypt produces, or Malaysia’s 533bpd, Ecuador’s 502bpd and Argentina’s 472bpd. The figure dwarfs Ghana’s 186bpd, Gabon’s 183bpd and Bahrain’s 170bpd.

In Africa, only Libya, Angola and Algeria have over double of the stolen Nigerian figure.

A United States publication, The Financial Post, said the estimated $1.7bn the country lost monthly “represents 7.7 per cent of its GDP vanishing, or more than the country spends on health and education.”

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative puts total losses of crude and refined products at $42bn from 2009 to 2018.

Security officers must face law

The Rivers State Governor, Nyesome Wike, in November 2021, said the fight to end oil theft had continued to fail because of the involvement of top-ranking officers of security agents.

According to him, oil theft must be treated as a treasonable felony because of the damage it causes to the economy.

“You know this bunkering cannot stop because everybody is involved. The military is involved, the police are involved, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps are involved. If not, there is no way illegal bunkering can continue.

“I don’t know, whether we should take the issue of bunkering to be more serious than treason. If you go around and see what has happened to our environment, you’ll have pity on us,” the governor was quoted to have said.

A public affairs commentator and lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, called for the arrest of the officers caught on camera in the Isheri area of Lagos to serve as a deterrent to others.

He said, “The unholy activity of the security officers is one that calls for swift and severe disciplinary and criminal sanctions. It is a notorious fact that law enforcement agents are routinely involved in pipeline vandalism, especially in the Niger-Delta region. This is economic sabotage and should not be treated lightly.

“The actions of the officers in this particular case should be visited with punitive measures to serve as a deterrent to other criminal elements in uniform. These are people paid with public funds to protect the law. It is particularly distressing that officers of the NSCDC, an agency established with a mandate to safeguard public facilities, are involved in this criminality.

“The authorities should dismiss them and ensure their diligent prosecution. Nigeria is a country where those who should enforce the law are actively engaged in flouting and aiding others to flout the law.”

A security expert, Dr Cynthia Gregg, said the country’s pipeline infrastructure had been subjected to incessant attacks by vandals, militants and security agencies.

She noted that it’s an organised crime as the possibilities of security personnel paying groups to break into oil pipelines could not be far-fetched.

“The attack affects the fabrics of life and the country’s economy at large by a decline in oil production as well as a decline in profit.

“This portends huge revenue loss to investors domestically and internationally, the decline in the socio-economic development of the nation, paralyses business activities engendered by power failure and provision of alternative source of power,” Gregg added.

To halt the trend, the expert called for increased policing of pipeline infrastructure from vandals by “trusted security officers of security agencies.”

She also called for constant availability of crude oil, PMS and other petroleum products.

“When a product is scarce, it breeds sharp practices on the vulnerable pipelines. There should also be a general improvement on the Nigerian economy as the cost of living is rising and people will begin to seek faster ways to make money than waiting for peanut salaries that cannot take someone to the bus stop, let alone home.

“If these issues are not dealt with, the frequency of pipeline vandalisation will become more incessantly on the rise,” she added.

The President of the Eagle Crime Awareness and Prevention Initiative, Samuel Adam (ECAPI), said communities play pivotal roles in securing pipelines, adding that their support and cooperation must be sought.

ECAPI is a volunteering organisation that solves crime through the involvement of communities, corporate organisations, the media and law enforcement agencies.

Adam called for education and enlightenment on the dangers of pipeline vandalism.

He said, “The local government chairmen, the bale, monarchs in that jurisdiction need to be fully involved. When the community believes that they now belong to the law enforcement agency, they will not only report the crimes, but safeguard the pipelines.

“We get reports that some traditional rulers are also involved in vandalism. Many people think it is national cake and that is why they take laws into their hands. They believe they can do it and get money. So, we need to make them part of the process of securing the pipes. There is a way to fight crime; but not through fire brigade approach.”

Police, NSCDC in denial, promise probe

The Lagos State Commandant of the NSCDC, Okoro Eweka, said since he assumed office in July 2021, vandalisation had reduced “to the barest minimum” in the state.

He insisted that the agency had maintained an “uncompromising stand” against vandalisation of pipelines.

According to him, in the last four months, there had not been any incident of break of pipeline.

“All we have are just peg failures, where vandalisation has occurred before and those points may pull up and the maintenance people will repair it and it will be fixed,” he added.

Confronted with the alleged involvement of his men in the vandalisation of the pipeline, he said, “Lagos is in two parts: some parts belong to Ogun State, in which Ogun people will take care of it, like if we are talking about Akute, some parts belong to the state, which is not under our command and control.

“The only one we are aware of in August was when there was an attempt to vandalise and we chased them away, which resulted in an oil spill and we fixed it.”

When our correspondent told him there was video evidence, Eweka said residents sometimes fabricate stories against his men.

“Yesterday (Wednesday) in Abule Ado, for instance, they were saying that they suspected vandalisation, whereas our men and Navy were there to sensitise them to a pipe leakage which ran under the canal so that nobody would use a candle that could cause an explosion. So, we who should be a protector should not be involved in vandalisation. We have our name at stake and our commandant-general does not tolerate such nonsense.

“We will act on evidence. But don’t forget, vandals can put on uniforms to do it. We know our men and they know what we are capable of doing and what awaits them if they involve in such a thing and they will never do it.”

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Odumosu, said the Inspector-General of Police Task Force on Pipeline Vandalisation handled every case on vandalism.

“Any government security agent involved in vandalisation will be prosecuted; there is nobody that is above the law. If those that are supposed to be in charge are now the ones aiding and abetting, they will pay dearly for it. But anything that has to do with that still goes to the IG task force on vandalisation of pipeline,” he added.

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