Governor Ad­ams Oshiom­hole of Edo State has ap­pealed to royal fathers in the South-South to help check the menace of crude oil theft in the re­gion.
The governor made the appeal last Friday when he received the South-South monarchs at the Govern­ment House in Benin City.
Oshiomhole said: “I think your royal majesties have a role to play to lend your voice against oil theft because that is destabilising the country and creating huge environ­mental challenges which we will confront when we may not have the resources to do so. When the oil dries up, the damage already done to the environment will persist and the resources that will be required to regenerate the environment to deal with the consequences of the pollu­tion may not be available.
“Across the South-South, too many of our people who want quick money are in­volved in crude oil theft. In Edo State, around Agbede, it is not an oil producing area but for some strange reasons, there are all kinds of illegal refineries there polluting and destroying a place that is ordinarily very suitable for agriculture.
“Being in government, there are things I no longer can say, but that does not mean that those things are not in my heart. I am wor­ried about what appears to be a free hand for criminals to help themselves with our common patrimony, called oil and gas.
“One of the long term consequences of this kind of situation is that you have ‘small-small’ boys of very little exposure, having ac­cess to huge resources that is not the result of hard work and because they are crimi­nal in nature, and the volume and sum involved is huge, they have enough money to raise alternative army, to procure the deadliest weap­ons to defend their territory which is basically an area they have carved out for the purpose of that heinous crime.
“I am very worried about the future of our country if few people take so much and the rest of us in the country have so little to share and these people are not invisible. If the volume of oil smuggling is so much and you know the amount, it means you should know the smugglers.
“Nigeria must find the courage to speak truth to power, including traditional power and if any of us, pres­ident, governor, minister or traditional ruler fouls the atmosphere, we should be dealt with according to law. Nigeria is greater than any of his sons.”

Edo gov tasks royal fathers on crude oil theft