The Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), today, called on President Bola Tinubu to set up an independent panel to unravel the unending mystery surrounding oil theft in Nigeria and probe oil bunkering and allied crimes, especially from 2015 till date.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the government must not spare the culprits identified at the end of the probe but name and shame them and sanction them severely.
The group’s call comes hours after the allegation by prominent Niger Delta leader, Asari Dokubo, who accused the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian Navy of being culpable of oil theft in the oil-rich Niger Delta area.
Dokubo, who met the President on Friday at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, accused the military of being at the centre of oil theft, saying 99 per cent of all oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military, the Army and especially the Navy.
The Nigerian Army has since responded to the allegations, saying it has been vigorously engaged in the fight against illegal oil bunkering, oil theft, illegal oil refining and other sundry crimes in the region with positive results.
Also, the Nigerian Navy has challenged Dokubo to produce the names of officers involved in crude oil theft.
In its reaction, HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The allegations by Dokubo are startling and damning and tmust be thoroughly investigated.
The association urged the President set up a seven-man independent panel of criminologists drawn from reputable global fora to investigate the larger cases of crude oil thefts from 2015-2023.
They said the panel should identify, prosecute and sanction culprits in the severest of mechanisms and recover to the last dollar public funds diverted through those stolen crude oil by these rogues no matter their statuses.
The association also demanded that Dokubo who made the allegations must provide irrefutable evidence or be prosecuted for providing false information which is a criminal offence.
