‘The Calibre Of People Who Escort Illegal Oil Bunkers Would Shock Nigerians’ – Fisayo Soyombo

Nigerian investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, has expressed concern over the kind of security cover available for oil bunkers in the country.

Naija News reports that the founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), in an interview with Arise TV morning show, said he was conducting an undercover investigation when the Nigerian Army arrested him.

Soyombo stated that there are innocent military men, but there is a need to sanitise the saboteurs who enable oil bunkers to thrive.

According to the journalist, it is not only oil bunkers that are thieves but also those who are meant to supervise the sector, adding that “What we would need is an overhaul of the system.”

He said, “It would shock you the kind of people who escort illegal oil bunkers out of Port-Harcourt.

“The army spokesman already compromised my security by going online to say that they found illegal bunkers.

“There are clean men in the military but we need to clean up the saboteurs who enable oil bunkerers to thrive.

“This is a new level for me that I need to do it. Rather than change approach, I will rather stop, maybe I have one, two, three under-cover investigations and I will stop.

“It is not the fun of it but the situations we found ourselves. Imagine the story I did on smugglers. People have to know that in their country they can be safe, and we need to expose these wrongdoings.

“The figure being put out in terms of Crude oil theft are an underestimation of what’s happening. The Crude we were to move was for 50,000 barrel, if the man who got annoyed that he wasn’t bribed didn’t talk, we would have had two trucks move out. There is no institution that can say for a fact the barrels are being lifted daily.”