Nigeria’s Waters: Under the Navy’s watch, Piracy reduces, and Oil Theft increases
Next to the petrol subsidy scam, oil theft remains the unresolved criminal puzzle here in Scammers Paradise.

ADF reported that Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea continues to drop due to efforts by regional and international navies. Still, the decline in piracy might be due to criminal networks shifting to other crimes, especially oil bunkering.

“Field research in the Niger Delta shows that high-level actors controlling pirate groups and oil bunkering may have reached consensus to stop allowing deep offshore piracy … A key factor remains that oil bunkering, when compared to deep offshore piracy, entails less risk and significantly higher reward or profit.,” ADF reported

Also, going by the Nigerian Navy’s profile on Wisevoter, it appears the Nigerian Navy is known for everything coastal and maritime security except preventing oil thieves from pumping and packing crude oil away from their country’s shores and territorial waters.

“While Nigeria does not have any globally famous navy ships, the Nigerian Navy plays a crucial role in combating piracy, illegal fishing, and other maritime security challenges in the region. It also contributes to international peacekeeping efforts in collaboration with other navies.

Nigeria ranks 22nd among the largest navies in the world, with a total of 136 warships. The Nigerian Navy operates a green water navy, focusing on coastal defense, maritime surveillance, and enforcing maritime laws within Nigeria's extensive coastline along the Gulf of Guinea.”

“A green-water navy is a maritime force that is capable of operating in its nation's littoral zones and has limited competency to operate in the surrounding marginal seas. It is a relatively new term and has been created to better distinguish, and add nuance, between two long-standing descriptors: blue-water navy (open oceans) and brown-water navy (inland and shallow littoral waters).”

Thus while the Nigerian Navy is known around the world to be useful in combating illegal fishing in their country’s territorial waters, they are not known for combating illegal pumping of their country’s crude oil through illegal pipelines to vessels on the ocean.

Or, could the Navy’s inability to see and stop oil thieves while they are seeing and stopping pirates on the same territorial waters be due to financial (dis)incentives?

Actually, the Federal Government budgeted the lowest amounts for the running of the Nigerian Navy compared to the Nigerian Air Force and the Nigerian Army since 2017

Perhaps, the Nigerian Navy’s low budgetary allocation reduces its capacity to see and stop oil thieves as much as it does pirates.

Last October, the government said it discovered an “illegal connection of a crude oil pipeline from one of its major oil terminals into the sea that had been operating for nine years which typically exports around 250,000 barrels of oil per day,” DW Africa reported.

DW Africa observed that “an illegal ocean pipeline is highly unusual and suggests a more sophisticated theft operation.”

Then, if the Nigerian Navy’s principal strength is limited to protecting the country’s territorial waters, as it obviously lacks the capacity for intercontinental warfare. Then, why would it successfully repel Pirates while oil thieves have freer rein?

Let’s get back to land, as soon as our boat anchors, and our jet lands, we might find the answers there