Illegal Bunjering: NPF To Deploy Surveillance Equipment To Secure Oil Pipelines
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu has disclosed plans by the force to deploy newly acquired long-range, remote monitoring, vehicles-mounted CCTV system to protect oil pipelines.
This according to him, is to prevent illegal bunkering and other acts of sabotage that could negatively impact on the local and global oil market. IGP Adamu stated this, on Wednesday, while addressing Sector, Intelligence and Unit Commanders of the IGP’s Special Task Force on Petroleum and Illegal Bunkering of the Nigeria Police Force. Adamu said: “We plan to engage community policing practices, intelligence-led operations and technology-driven strategies. He explained that this cutting-edge mobile surveillance equipment will enable the Task Force to deploy long-range CCTV cameras with high resolutions mounted on vehicles to monitor a distance of up to two to three kilometres stretch of pipelines. The camera, he said can store images and can be used for immediate surveillance, response operations, intelligence gathering and other Police operations which are very vital to critical operations.
Speaking further Adamu said the Nigeria Police is the lead agency in internal security which is constitutionally empowered to protect lives and property, prevent and detect crime and guarantee the maintenance of public order. He revealed: “Nigeria has a total pipeline grid of about 5,000 kilometres. This consists of 4,315 kilometres of multi-products and 666 kilometres of crude oil pipelines. These pipelines link the 22 petroleum depots, four refineries, the offshore terminals at Bonny and Escravos, the Jetties at Atlass Cove, Calabar, Okirika and Warri. Given this, he charged officers of the Task Force to ensure the provision of optimal security for critical national assets. It is in furtherance to this that, the Special Task Force on Petroleum and Illegal Bunkering was established with the core mandate of working with NNPC and other security agencies towards securing oil pipelines, preventing illegal bunkering or any act of sabotage, he said.
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