President of Ijaw National Congress (INC), the umbrella body of the Ijaw worldwide, Prof. Benjamin Okaba, and National Publicity Secretary of Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Dr. Ken Robinson, are skeptical about the impact of the recent abolition of the crude oil swap policy, saying it is the same players that will be recycled.

When asked about the likely impact of reversal on oil theft and the Niger Delta region, Okaba told The Guardian that people have different views about it.

He said some see it as another way of getting the exact figures, rather than the disparities bandied around between what goes out and what is received as revenue.

According to Okaba, if the new policy is such that buyers have to buy directly, especially in local currency, it will lead to a reasonable level of accountability.

Others, he added, feel it is same people who corrupted the oil industry that would also be involved in the new arrangement, and so, wondered if the kind of difference that is going to be made and believe it would only be a swap of the corrupt persons that had been beneficiaries; hence going from one cabal to another.

Could this end oil theft in the Niger Delta? Okaba does not think so. “Oil theft may not end in the Niger Delta until issues of resource control are addressed. If the people in the region are made to own and exploit the resources and pay money taxes to the Federal Government, then they will protect their own.

“Did you hear of gold theft in Zamfara State? No! This is because of the ownership of gold found in that state. It is the people of the state that own and manage the resource, unlike in the Niger Delta, where the resources remain in the region, but are managed by outsiders.

“But if they know that the resources or pipelines have a direct impact on the people, they will protect it. There is no better way of protecting the facilities than the direct participation of the indigenous people.”

Asked where that leaves the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, the INC president stated: “The contract awarded to Tompolo is not supposed to last forever; as far as we are concerned, it was a stop-gap approach.

“At that time, it was very necessary, because the security firms that won the contract, just like Asari (Dokubo) mentioned recently, and those that were supposed to protect the pipelines, compromised. We have evidence and pictures, where, before their own eyes, crude oil was being diverted from one place to another.

“So, going further by breaking the levels into smaller clusters, where the communities are directly involved in the management of these things, particularly where the community knows that is where they are earning a living from, they will protect it even with their lives.

“We know what we are managing internally even with this contract awarded.”

So, is he, more or less, saying Dokubo is right? Okaba noted: “It is not whether they were/are involved or not; it is the evidence Nigerians know. For example, the ship that was reported to have carried Nigeria’s crude off our shores that those naval officers arrested, who was escorting the ship? Didn’t they pass through military checkpoints on the high sea?

“It is not something to argue about, people should just be careful. The military men are posted to all oil locations across the Niger Delta, were they sleeping when the ship was arrested and others unaccounted for were stealing crude oil?”

On why Dokubo is being vilified for saying what he said, the Ijaw leader stated: “You know in this country, some people don’t like the truth. He has challenged them with facts and figures. Let them carry out another investigation to prove that they were not involved and do a verification of those who were on duty when oil theft was very high in the region.”

Where does this leave the Niger Delta people? He stated: “The ultimate solution is to restructure this country and allow for resource control, following the derivation principle.

“As I keep saying, when groundnut, cocoa and palm oil were the main income earners in this country, we never had issues like this, because the regions protected their resources, knowing that whatever came out of it was to be managed by them and they used the resources to provide infrastructure for their people. The regions were able to come up with independent policies and roadmaps for their own sustainable development.

“It is oil that has become an all-comers’ thing, with everybody claiming to own the oil, but only a few people own the gold. Whatever that is from the Niger Delta belongs to everybody, but resources from other parts of the country do not belong to everybody. That is the problem.

“Look at the PIA, which gives mere three per cent to host communities that bear the brunt of environmental degradation, etc, as a result of oil exploration and exploitation, is that fair? Even in the provisions, there are anti-people clauses, with the state government no longer able to play supervisory roles.

“Maybe it is another divide and rule policy to balkanise the people of the region and make them powerless and toothless to make it easy to cart away the benefits from the resources.

“I don’t think the government of the federation bothers about what happens to the people of the Niger Delta. Instead, what interests them is more of what they can take from the region, not the sufferings of the people. It is shameful that the region continues to be impoverished, which does not happen in other climes, where the owners of the resources manage their resources and pay tax to the central government.

“This has become a moral issue. They take so much from the people and give very little back to them, while some have theirs, which they don’t give anything to other people. It is as bad as that.

“I expect the present administration of President Bola Tinubu, who was a supporter of resource control in the past, to correct all these anomalies. That is the only thing that can bring about sustainable peace in the region.”

Asked what gives him the hope that he will be able to do that, Okaba responded: “Well, going by his antecedents, he came to the limelight as a member of the defunct National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which stood for resource control and true federalism, as well as his disagreement with the then President Olusegun Obasanjo over the creation of local council development areas by his administration as governor of Lagos State.

“I want to believe that we can leverage his positive political background, coupled with his recent decisions as President of the country, and I believe he should be able to do the needful by taking care of the region from which so much revenue is derived in this country.”

In that regard, he expects the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, being from the South-South, and a former governor of Akwa Ibom State and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, need not be pushed about on issues and challenges of the region.

Indeed, he said the people expect Akpabio to provide the support, in terms of making appropriate laws that will uplift the living conditions of the people of the Niger Delta region.

But a security expert, Capt. Aliyu Umar Babangida (rtd), has described Dokubo’s claim of military complicity in oil theft in the region as worrisome, saying it brings to the fore questions that have hitherto made rounds on the manner “in which an entire shipload of stolen crude oil (apprehended and handed over to Nigeria from Equatorial Guinea) was disposed of some time ago.”

Babangida, who is a security resource and solutions consultant and Chief Executive Officer of Goldwater Consults, said: “One would have expected the catch to have been ample evidence and led to who the ship crew and owners were. Alas! The ship was reported to have been burnt by the Navy.

That’s unusual, to say the least.”

National Publicity Secretary of Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Dr. Ken Robinson, said what has been going on in Nigeria’s oil industry is ridiculous.

“There has been outrageous stealing of crude oil, official and unofficial, legitimised and illegal stealing. But stealing is stealing! That you would take crude oil from a country and swap with refined products and come to Nigeria to still talk about subsidy is shameful.

“In fact, there are insinuations and speculations that all of the swap and refining is done in offshore platforms in the coast of West Africa. We just hope that President Tinubu, having started well, will sanitise the system and ensure that Nigerians benefit from what God has blessed us with.”