NNPC to consider using locals to protect pipeline – Kachikwu

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has hinted that the corporation may settle for the option of community-based policing to protect the vast artery of oil and gas pipeline network across the country.
Kachikwu said this when he received the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Perry John Calderwood, who paid a courtesy visit to the NNPC headquarters in Abuja.
The Federal Government under former President Goodluck Jonathan had in the dying days of the administration awarded pipeline protection contracts to private security outfits.
Among those whose companies got the contract for the protection of the pipelines during Jonathan’s administration were the Leader of the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, Mujahid Asari-Dokubo; the President of the Oodua Peoples Congress, Dr. Frederick Faseun; and the National Coordinator of the OPC, Otunba Gani Adams.
A substantial reduction was noticed in the attack on the pipelines installations of the NNPC while the contract, which was for an initial period of three months, was in force.
The Federal Government is yet to pay the private security firms for the contract.
They have threatened to take the government to court.
But Kachikwu told his guest that a lot of attention would be paid to the perennial menace of pipeline vandalism and oil theft.
He said: “I intend to give a lot of energy to the issue of oil theft and pipeline vandalism.
“We must keep the losses from oil theft to the lowest figure possible.
“I don’t believe in the arm-for-arm approach.
“We must engage the host communities and inculcate in them the need to see the assets in their domain as their own.”
Kachikwu said in the months ahead, the NNPC would initiate discussions with community leaders and interest groups with a view to fashioning a workable community-oriented pipeline protection format with less emphasis on the use of brute force to secure the lines.
He also solicited for support from Canadian companies for the nation’s refineries, stating that Nigeria could make do with Canada’s vast experience in refining and expertise in oil and gas operations.
In his response, Calderwood said the Canadian government and business entities were willing to work with the NNPC in growing the Nigeria oil and gas industry to enviable heights.