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By Emeka Okoroanyanwu
Recently, the traditional ruler of Upata Kingdom in Ahoada East, Rivers State, His Royal Majesty, Felix Otuwarikpo, stirred the Hornets’ nest by accusing the nation’s elite of high culpability in massive crude oil theft and sabotage in the Niger Delta region.
The traditional ruler, who spoke at the opening of the 2026 Press Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Rivers Council also used the opportunity to admonish the press, the traditional watchdog of the society, to expose the heinous crime which has caused the country a fortune.
His exact words: “The elite sponsor people to indulge in pipelines vandalism at the community level, so we should begin to look beyond blaming poverty and illiteracy. We should broaden our assertions to include elite class involvement in order to find lasting solutions.”
The traditional ruler then urged journalists to be more critical in reporting the oil sector in order to expose members of the elite class that sponsor crude oil theft and economic sabotage.
Affirming the position of the Upata traditional ruler on elite oil theft in Nigeria, former Governor of Edo State and a sitting Senator, Adams Oshimhole, recently on the floor of the Senate, threw a bombshell, when he alleged that some highly placed Nigerians were behind oil theft in the Niger Delta region. Coming from these two respectable personalities from the Niger region, no one can doubt the authenticity of these weighty allegations.
Crude oil theft and vandalism of oil and gas infrastructure have been a sore point in the nation’s quest for economic growth and regeneration. It comes with debilitating effects on the country’s economy. Apart from the economic haemorrhage and attendant environmental pollution that come with the crime, such organised heist, has become a money spinning business for the oil thieves. Of course, this is at the detriment of the country.
Many Nigerians are aware that before the Muhammadu Buhari administration, Nigeria’s oil production capacity was consistently over two million barrels per day and shortfalls only occurred during periods of pipeline vandalism by militants but once repairs were made, production returned to normal.
However, under the leadership of the former Managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, Mele Kyari’s, crude Oil production was kept down at between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day. What happened to the shortfall could hardly be explained as the anomaly remained even after Kyari’s departure. The new Group Managing Director that took over from Kyari seemed also to find it difficult to dismantle the existing structure because, apparently, he does not supervise Nigeria’s oil export terminal operations.
What is more worrisome is the fact that instead of crude oil production to be on the increase so as to meet the county’s Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) allocated quota, with the renewed policing and protection of the crude oil pipelines and crude oil facilities, Nigeria’s current crude oil production quota from the oil cartel stubbornly stagnated at 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd).
Over the last two years (2025 through mid-2026), Nigeria had continuously struggled to meet its OPEC allocated quota, with production averaging between 1.3 million and 1.55 million bpd depending on the month. Unfortunately, the country’s 2026 federal budget targets a higher production benchmark of 1.84 million bpd (which includes condensates) to meet its revenue benchmark.
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Though experts say pipeline vandalism, aging infrastructure, and crude oil theft are majorly the cause of the country’s frequent drop in crude oil production, below 1.5 million bpd and its inability to also meet higher production benchmark, but most disturbing is why decades of pipelines vandalism and crude oil theft cannot be completely checked and even eradicated.
Unfortunately, the country under the Muhammadu Buhari administration abandoned the Navy whose constitutional responsibility is to police the water channels and the creeks, instead handed its pipelines and oil security to a private entity. Last year, the US Coast Guard and Navy intercepted a supertanker in December 2025 on suspicion of crude oil theft and equally linked the operation to a money-laundering network.
The supertanker, with capacity to carry up to 2.2 million barrels of crude oil, was reportedly owned and managed by Nigeria-based firm, which later told the US authority that its company had no hand in anything coming from Nigeria. Similar incidents abound in the Nigerian waters where crude oil ships reportedly sneak into the creeks and escape with large cargoes of unaccounted oil.
Since the shocking discovery in the US, no government agency; neither NIMASA nor NNPCL or any government spokesperson made any official statement to enlighten the people on the incident. Sadly too, no one is asking the NNPCL or NIMASA questions, yet tax payers’ money and money generated from crude oil production are used by the Federal government to fund these organisations.
As rightly stated by the Royal Father, crude oil theft is a well organised crime that has become a money spinning business that cannot be funded or sponsored by poor and uneducated people.
The League of Maritime Editors (LOME), the country’s number one Maritime watchdog is worried about this sordid development in the country’s oil sector given the importance of crude oil to the nation’s economy.
The League agrees totally with the traditional ruler on the evil effect of this elite heist on the country and calls for an immediate halt. It is quite sad that since this crime on the nation has been exposed, no big man has been arrested or indicted for crude oil theft.
It is sad also that oil theft has taken a devastating toll on the nation’s economy. For instance, last year, Nigeria only met or marginally exceeded its quota in a handful of isolated months—specifically January (approx. 1.54 million bpd), June (approx. 1.51 million bpd), and July. For the remaining nine months of 2025, production fell below the target.
In January 2026, crude oil production hit about 1.53 million bpd, but subsequently fell to roughly 1.30 to 1.45 million bpd in February and March. Crude oil production for April saw a marginal recovery, hovering around 1.38 million bpd. The sad reality is that the country can do better in this regard.
The League of Maritime Editors, therefore, calls on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to get the Nigeria Navy to carry out its constitutional responsibility of working with sister agencies such as the Civil Defence, Directorate of State Services (DSS), the Air Force and others to properly police the nation’s territorial waters including crude oil pipelines and other marine infrastructure.
We believe that the present tactics used in preventing crude oil theft and crude oil pipelines vandalism are short term measures as no serious country actually leaves its critical infrastructure in the hands of private organizations. This is also the time for the Federal Government, to set up a special Commission or Court to prosecute individuals involved in crude oil theft and other economic crimes. Such court should be enabled by an Act of parliament. Until this is done, the country would still be losing trillions of naira to crude oil thieves and vandals yearly.
