PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has charged governors in oil-producing states, service chiefs and multinational companies to work out an aggressive approach to tackle crude oil theft.

The President gave the charge at a close-door meeting he presided over on Thursday night at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The meeting had in attendance, Vice President Namadi Sambo, governors of Akwa-Ibom and Delta states, Godswill Akpabio and Emmanuel Uduaghan, respectively.

Ministers, Service Chiefs and major players in the oil sector were also in attendance.

In an interview with State House correspondents after the meeting, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, said the focus of the meeting was to find ways of ending oil theft.

She said it was agreed that a much more aggressive approach was needed to stop the crime.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NANS) quoted her as saying: “We are continuing with what has been done, but we are becoming much more aggressive.

“Earlier today, we met with a number of multinationals; we have come up with various pointers which must be addressed in an indepth manner over the next 10 days.

“Technical team is going to meet across all the stakeholders; they will break into various committees because, as I said, it is many- pronged and must be addressed with a multi-pronged approach.

“Over the next 10 days, we will form the relevant committees, they will meet and we will move to implement very aggressively.”

Allison-Madueke expressed dismay at the alarming rate of oil theft, which she said, had negatively effected the nation’s resources.

She stated: “The meeting was called with all relevant stakeholders to address a very critical issue of crude oil theft.

“(Crude Oil theft) At this point in time… has become quite critical to the point that it is affecting our excess crude and revenue accruing to the federation account from the proceeds of our output.

“As you can see, Mr President has called governors of affected states, all the multinationals, multinational chiefs, all the Service Chiefs as well as NPDC, NNPC and other ministers who are related stakeholders.”

Speaking on the same issue, Uduaghan said that the alarming rate of oil theft in the country needed urgent solutions because of its effect on revenue generation for the country.

He said the effects of the oil theft on the economy had become so dire because of the monolythic oil-dependent economy of the country

Uduaghan said: “We should look forward to the reduction in the quantity of crude oil that is being stolen from Nigeria.

“The challenge we have now is that a lot more oil is being stolen than we used to have and that is affecting the economy of the country as less fund is coming to the treasury,” he said.

“You know that our economy is still dependent on oil and until we move it away from oil, we will still continue to depend on oil.”

The governor added: “That is why some of us are emphasising the issue of creating an economy beyond oil and that is what we call in Delta, ‘Beyond Oil.’

The governor alleged that oil theft was perpetrated by members of the local community aided by the multinational community.

He, however, said that the issue could best be resolved by collective efforts, using proactive measures.

Minister of State for Finance, Yerima Ngama, and Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, were also in attendance.