Group Seeks Int’l Collaboration against Nigeria Crude Oil Theft

Illegal bunkering

By Ejiofor Alike

Stop the Theft, a campaign to raise awareness about the scale and consequences of the illegal theft of oil in the Niger Delta at the weekend convened a workshop for international experts on economic crime to consider solutions to oil theft in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

Representatives from government, multilateral organisations, the oil industry and civil society gathered to attend the event which was hosted at the House of Commons by the All Party parliamentary Group for Extractive Industries (APPG EI) and presided over by the Chair of the International Board of the ExtractiveIndustries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Clara Short.

Discussions at the workshop focused on assessing the relevance and potential application of existing international frameworks to track financial flows from oil theft.

Some of the principal speakers included the Director General of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering (GIABA), Dr. Abdulahi Shehu; co-founder of the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, Saul Froomkin and a Senior Finance Specialist at the World Bank, Emile van der Does de Willebois.
Key contributions were also made by the barrister and lecturer in financial law at SOAS, Dr. Richard Alexander and Segun Osuntokun and Alex Payanides, respectively partners in the law firms of Berwin Leighton Paisner and Clifford Chance.

Stop The Theft also seek to work with partners and other interested parties to propose and advocate for long term and tangible solutions.

Spokesman of Stop The Campaign, Dr. Patrick Dele Cole said stealing industrial quantities of crude oil and selling it into the international system inevitably involved significant financial transactions.

“Tracking the illicit financial flows associated with oil theft is one of the key weapons available to the Nigerian government and international partners in the fight against oil theft. Bringing together these experts from around the world to discuss how to tackle this aspect of the problem is a first step towards deepening knowledge and information on potential solutions to this problem and could form part of a long term and integrated approach,” he said.

Stop the theft is a campaign to raise awareness about the scale and consequences of the illegal theft of oil in the Niger Delta and to work with partners and other interested parties to propose and advocate for long term and tangible solutions.

The campaign is led by Ambassador Dr Patrick Dele Cole, the former international relations advisor to President Obasanjo and an indigene of Abonnema in Rivers State which has been affected by the illegal trade for many years. The Campaign is co-ordinated by Stop the Theft Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation registered in the United Kingdom.