The Senate has formed a 13-member ad hoc committee to investigate the alleged oil theft and its impact on the economy.
This was announced by the president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, during the plenary session on Thursday.
Mr. Lawan said that the committee would be chaired by Bassey Akpan (PDP-Akwa Ibom).
“Other members are Senator Yusuf A. Yusuf, Senator Solomon Adeola, Senator Kabiru Gaya, Senator Mohammed Aliero, Senator George Sekibo, and Senator Gabriel Suswam.
“The rest are Senator Kashim Shettima, Senator Aliyu Sabi, Senator Ali Ndume, Senator Stella Oduah, Senator Sani Musa and Senator Ibrahim Gobir,” he said.
The committee is expected to complete its task within a month.
Last week, NNPC Group Managing Director Mele Kyari revealed that Nigeria lost $4 billion from oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day in 2021.
He added that the country has already lost $1.5 billion so far in 2022 because pipeline vandalism has intensified.
Kyari said the country was losing 95 percent of its oil production to thieves at the Bonny Terminal in Rivers state.
The confirmation came after a revelation of United Bank of Africa President Tony Elumelu’s claim that Nigeria was losing so much to the thieves at the terminal.
Elumelu said in a Twitter thread on March 17 that Nigeria was losing 95 percent of production at the Bonny terminal due to vandals forcing Shell to declare force majeure production activities at that field.
“Look at Bonny Terminal which should be receiving 200K barrels per day, instead received less than 3,000 barrels, prompting trader @shell to declare higher faith,” Elumelu tweeted.
Kyari said that Nigeria could only get 3,000 barrels out of the 239,000 barrels injected into the pipeline from Bonny Terminal.
(YAYA)