Senate President Ahmad Lawan says crude oil thieves are the
worst enemies of the country.
Speaking on Friday at a joint session of the national
assembly shortly before President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2023
appropriation bill, Lawan said oil thieves have declared war on the country.
Despite attempts by successive administrations to diversify,
crude oil has remained the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy.
However, in recent months, crude oil theft has reached
alarming heights, affecting government’s revenue and ability to carry out
capital projects.
The senate president said if measures are not taken to stop
the trend, the country’s economy would end up in turmoil.
“Mr. President, I consider the oil thieves the worst enemies
of our country. The thieves have declared war on our country and our people,”
he said.
“I strongly feel that if we do not take the necessary
measures to stop the thieves immediately, our economy will be devastated, as
efforts to provide infrastructure and diversification of the economy would both
be thwarted.
“It is time to take
drastic and desperate measures against the thieves.”
Lawan said the move to diversify the economy using oil is
“under serious threat”.
“With conflicting figures, projections have put our losses
from this malaise at between 700,000 to 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day,
leading to about 29 to 35 percent loss in oil revenue in the first quarter of
2022,” he said.
“This represents an estimated total fall from N1.1 trillion
recorded in the last quarter of 2021 to N790 billion in the first quarter of
this year.
“The situation has
worsened. Recently, the loss of our oil has reached one million barrels per
day. Translated into monetary terms, our loss is monumental. The figures show
we are not able to meet the OPEC daily quota of 1.8million barrels per day.”
The senate president also expressed dismay over floods that
have taken over parts of the country.
“We will need to take proactive measures to tackle this and
especially manage our dams and other water bodies to curtail the menace of
flooding, now becoming a national disaster,” he said.
“Our focus and targets should be on how to prevent these
annual floods from occurring in the scale that we experience annually.
“This year, the
floods have not only devastated families, but also destroyed our
infrastructure, roads particularly.”
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