Governor Theodore Orji of Abia state has said he would treat pipeline vandals as thieves, directing security men along the pipeline right of way to shoot on sight anyone found tampering with pipelines.
Speaking at the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depot at Osisioma, Aba during an awareness campaign against pipeline vandalism,
Orji, who was represented by his commissioner for petroleum, Chief Don Ubani, said that pipeline
vandalism must be stopped at all cost as it is detrimental to both human and economic activities in the state and country.
He described those who engage in pipeline vandalism as oil thieves and must be treated as such and advised parents to caution their children.
He called on stakeholders in the oil industry to form a synergy that will bring to an end pipeline vandalism in the state and save the youths from untimely deaths through pipeline fires.
Orji said that the issue of pipeline vandalism should not be left for the state government alone to tackle, as it needs the efforts of others like NNPC, Pipeline, Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and pipeline host communities to surmount.
He warned that government has never looked the other way since the reactivation of the Aba depot, as it has always been at the vanguard of ensuring that all those who have been found to be involved in the tampering of the pipeline despite their position in the system have been transferred out of the state.
Orji said, “Since the state government with the help of the federal government reactivated the Aba depot of the NNPC, we have never left them to be on their own our eyes are there always and those who have been found to be involved or intending to be involved have always been transferred out through the instrumentality of the state government”.
Eearlier, the depot manager Engr Emma Mgbakiri, said that the pipeline is the only sure way to transport petroleum products from the refinery in Port Harcourt to other parts of the country, adding that it is a shame that people are vandalizing the pipeline for their selfish gains.
Mgbakiri said that the vandalising of the pipeline has caused many youths to die in the process, while many farm lands and their produce have been destroyed because of the acts of the evil men, adding that food scarcity is as a result of pipeline vandals which cause environmental degradation.
In his speech, the Public Relations Officer of Aba Independent Petroleum Markets Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Simple Nwankpa, urged NNPC to provide welfare packages for the youths who have been protecting the pipeline before the coming of the military.