Leadership of the Ijaw youths worldwide, the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has thrown its weight behind the allegations of Nigerian military involvement in crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
The IYC, through its national spokesman, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, also said despite the repeated security operations by the operatives of the Nigerian military against crude oil thieves in some communities in the region, the operations are carried out due to alleged conflict of interest by men of the military and the oil thieves.
The IYC spokesman, during a media briefing at the weekend, said though the youths of the region support the security search for those involved in the theft of crude oil, the IYC frowns at the fact that the top echelon of the Nigerian military and their boys are involved in the crude oil theft and illegal bunkering activities which goes on in the Niger Delta region.
According to Ekerefe, “In some cases, the Nigerian Military authorities get intelligence report from sister agencies on the complicit involvement of its personnel in cases of illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft in the region but they keep mute. Investigation revealed that most of the repeated military invasion have shown a criminal aspect of armed campaign against the Ijaw nation and the conflict of interests in the proceeds accrued from illegal activities of crude oil theft in the region.
“Some military personnel serving in the region have become richer than those in the Presidency by being posted to the region. While some get as much as N500,000 weekly to allow secret movement of whooping 61 thousand litres of stolen crude to a vessel berthed on the Atlantic Ocean under the security escort of combatant armed military personnel. Others own and protect illegal bunkering sites along the waterways and rivers. When their interest or investment are breached by some restive youths, they label communities close to the site as allegedly harboring gunmen and invade such communities. It has happened in Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa states.
“We challenge the EFCC to investigate the bank accounts of Military Generals posted to the Niger Delta, including their properties, it will shock the nation of monumental discoveries.”
Ekerefe, who also frowned at the increasing cases of military invasion of Ijaw communities, alleged that the invasion of Ijaw communities was allegedly done without proper rule of engagement and under the guise of searching for crude oil thieves that are never caught.
He said, “We have watched with restraint, the murderous destruction of communities, killings and maiming of innocent and harmless children, men and women, including the elderly, under the pretense of going after unrepentant militants and oil thieves. We want to place it on record that Nigeria’s colonizing Joint Task Force (JTF) has, in the past fifteen years, decimated our defenseless populations in more than Eighty (80) Ijaw villages, towns and cities.”
