The Minister of Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, has decried the huge impact of incessant pipeline vandalism on the economic development of the country, urging all Nigerians to be practically involved in the war against the unpatriotic act.

Kachikwu, who toured the notorious vandalism spots in Arepo area of Ogun State and Atlas Cove, offshore Lagos, yesterday said the act was frustrating and the Federal Government would put all mercenaries in place to combat the menace that has eaten deep into the national purse.

“This is very frustrating. It is indeed an eye opener in terms of the hard times that we are facing…the more programmes you bring in, the more refinement you bring in, the more difficulties we have. This is a massive operation as you can see. We are losing about 200 or 300 trucks of products to this act. This is a good discovery and I wonder how many more of this we have undiscovered,” he said.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had in its latest report noted that a total of 2,447 vandalised points were recorded between January to November 2015, resulting in a total loss of 637,550 cubic metres of crude and products valued at N56.68 billion.

On what steps the government would be taking to combat communities exporting bunkered products to neighbouring countries, Kachukwu said: “I wish I have an immediate solution, I will be lying if I say I do here, a lot more still need to be done. We discovered this through the effort of our contractor. A lot more effort needed to be put in place towards securing the oil facilities, but the difficulty we have is that the more you secure, the more others are broken, so the solutions are long time. We have to go back are really think of what to do, because sometimes it’s quite tough securing a pipeline that covers over 5000 kilometres route,”

Kachikwu however, stated that the issue of saving Nigerian assets is not only the responsibility of the NNPC, or the security agencies, rather that of every Nigerian.

“It is the responsibility of you and I and this people are engaged in this, with communities living here and watch this happen on the hope that nobody finds out, so they collect their own share, who are you going to blame, the job of the group managing director of NNPC, or minister’s office touring the whole bush, it is the job of the security officials to primarily protect this country and when you need to face militants in the South-South, facing Boko Haram in the North and then come here to pursue vandals with jerry cans. The country has very massive problems. The solutions to Nigerian problems are Nigerians,” he said.

The NNPC report had said a comprehensive reform of the pipeline security situation would unlock several industry upsides which include improved upstream oil production due to reduced pipeline disruptions, improved refinery utilization due to increased crude oil feed from restored pipelines, and reduction of crude/product losses.