Deji Elumoye and Sunday Aborisade in Abuja
“It is clear that the PIA/Host Community law we put in place is not the solution. If stealing of crude has taken this worrisome dimension, what can the host communities do?“I still believe that PIB/Host Community law put in place is not the solution to oil theft. The law would not achieve its intendment if the current massive oil theft is not addressed.”
He explained, “We’ve carried out on the spot assessment of the Niger Delta area where we spent over one week trying to find out what was actually going on. “Stakeholders are also complaining about the roles of regulatory agencies which they claimed was not good enough to guarantee ease of doing business.”
“The Senate will stop at nothing to unveil the criminals behind the crime and that is why we set an adhoc committee to unravel the thieves and come up with workable solutions to end the menace, before December this year.” He specifically alleged that the military should be held responsible for high rate of crude oil theft in the country.
He said, “One of the greatest problems we have, which nobody has highlighted is that there is a strong connivance of our security forces in the crime.