Federal Government spent $1.5bln to protect Nigeria's oil installations in four years

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The Federal Government has invested over $1.5 billion since 2020 to protect Nigeria’s oil installations and combat crude oil theft.

This was disclosed by George Akume, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), during a public hearing of the House of Representatives on crude oil theft.

Akume, represented by the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Maurice Nandi, expressed concern over the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report, which highlighted that over $46 billion worth of crude oil was stolen between 2009 and 2020.

The House of Representatives had established a special committee, led by the Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Ado Doguwa, to investigate the losses in the oil and gas sector.

Additionally, Speaker of the House Tajudeen Abbas, represented by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, noted that $10 billion has been lost to crude oil theft within the past seven months, underscoring the severe impact of these losses on the government’s ability to manage the nation’s resources effectively.