News: Mark insists on death penalty for oil thieves

NOT minding the opposition of rights groups and other stakeholders, Senate President David Mark has maintained his stance that nothing short of death penalty would compensate adequately for stealing crude oil in the country.


Mark, who spoke on Tuesday while welcoming the senators back from their two-week holiday to mark the end of another legislative year, based his position on the understanding that the menace would pose serious challenges to the nation’s economy if not adequately checkmated.

In related development, Chairman of the Presidential Programme on Amnesty and Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, has called for a stop to illegal oil bunkering in the region even as the amnesty office prepares to wind down its programme.

Kuku, at an event held in Abuja to celebrate the amnesty programme, called on countries such as Cameroun, Gabon and others “where illegal refineries exist” to stop the menace.

While imploring Cameroun, Gabon and other countries where the demand for the illegal oil emanate from to cooperate to put an end to it, he regretted that illegal oil bunkered runs into about 500,000 barrels per day while the country legally drills about 2.6 million barrels per day.

Noting that persons in and out of Nigeria are involved, he, however, exempted the Niger Delta indegenes from the illegal act, claiming, “the one our people were involved in was illegal refining, which we call coal fire, but this has been stopped by the Joint Task Force,” adding that the international community should stop those asking for the illegal oil from the region.

Speaking on the success of the amnesty programme so far, he said the peace enjoyed in the region through the programme has made it possible to drill such an amount of oil to the extent that sometime in 2011, the country’s oil output was over N6 trillion.

While pointing out the challenge of identity duplication by youths who desperately want to be enrolled in the programme, Kuku declared that the programme must end in 2015.

Nevertheless, he assured that his office would complete the training of all enrolled delegates while those pursuing long term programmes meant to outlast the 2015 exit date would be handed over to existing government bodies statutorily empowered by extant laws to oversee scholarships and training programmes.

Meanwhile, the appointment of former Senate President Ken Nnamani as Chairman and Aminu Diko as Director General of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) have been confirmed by the Senate.

Also confirmed were Mrs. Comfort Saro Wiwa of Rivers State (for South-South geo-political zone), Janet Fabisola Adeyemi from Ondo (South West), Mrs. Yabawa Wabi of Borno (North East), Musa Elayo from Nasarawa (North Central) and A.U. Kanu from Abia (South East zone) as members.

Mark said: “I sill maintain my earlier stance that oil theft should attract capital punishment. As we make progress and win hearts and minds of the people, government must intensify the provision of social amenities in those areas where normalcy has returned.”

He further urged his colleagues to make the welfare of Nigerians paramount in all their parliamentary actions during the third Session of the 7th Senate.