… accuses Buhari of blocking his bid to acquire oil field
Business mogul, Tony Elumelu, has challenged the Federal Government and security agencies to reveal the identity of those stealing Nigeria’s crude oil with vessels moving through the nation’s territorial waters.
Elumelu made this challenge in an interview by the Financial Times on Friday.
According to Elumelu, the menace contributed to the divestment of international oil companies in Nigeria.
He claimed to have directly discovered why international oil companies were partly divesting from onshore assets after criminal gangs began stealing crude from his pipelines.
When his company was about to shut down production in 2022, Elumelu tweeted, “How can we be losing over 95 per cent of oil production to thieves? Look at the Bonny Terminal which should be receiving over 200,000 barrels of crude oil daily, instead, it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator Shell to declare force majeure. The reason Nigeria is unable to meet its OPEC production quota is not because of low investment but because of theft, pure and simple!
“Meanwhile, oil-producing countries are smiling as their foreign reserve is rising. What is Nigeria’s problem? We need to hold our leaders more accountable!”
Elumelu further told Financial Times that oil thieves still take away 18 per cent of crude from his field.
“42,000 barrels of crude pumped out daily. Theft still takes away about 18 per cent of production, he said.
When asked to identify those behind the theft, the business mogul replied, “This is oil theft, we’re not talking about stealing a bottle of Coke you can put in your pocket. The government should know, they should tell us. Look at America — Donald Trump was shot at and quickly they knew the background of who shot him. Our security agencies should tell us who is stealing our oil. You bring vessels to our territorial waters and we don’t know?”
Elumelu, who is also the founder of Heirs Holdings, recalled how the administration of former president Muhammadu Buhari allegedly stopped him from acquiring an oilfield.
He said Heirs Holdings had been struggling to purchase the oilfield since 2017, having raised $2.5bn to purchase a different one.
But according to him, former president Buhari and his late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, blocked the deal.
He claimed to have been told that government could not allow something of such strategic importance to be under the control of a private operator.
According to him, “This defied logic,” since he would have been purchasing it from a foreign company.
Elumelu further explained that as one of the few Nigerians who got their wealth outside of oil, his decision to buy a 45 per cent stake in an oilfield three years ago when international oil companies such as Shell, Total and Eni were selling off their shallow water assets in Nigeria was to give the country energy security in the face of low power supply.
“We wanted to become a Fortune 500 company and we estimated what we needed. It’s not naira, it’s huge dollars. Energy security is crucial for a country that doesn’t produce enough electricity for its roughly 200 million citizens,” he added.
Elumelu declared support for the Japa syndrome, saying, “I support it, totally. “I don’t have a problem with people saying ‘I’m going to Canada, UK or US.’
“Joblessness is the betrayal of a generation. You’ve gone to school and come back with your dreams and aspirations and you don’t have the opportunity . For people who decide to find solutions elsewhere, no one should stop them. But for those who decide to stay, they should try to create an impact and build a legacy.”
