The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral  Emmanuel Ogalla has pledged  that the Nigeria Navy, under his watch, would deal decisively with personnel found to be involved in oil theft.

Ogalla said this while addressing newsmen at the end of his maiden familiarisation tour of the Nigeria Navy Ship (NNS) Pathfinder in Port Harcourt on Friday.

He said the navy was fully focused and had already taken actionable steps to end crude oil theft and other illegalities at the nation’s territorial waters.

He said, “We are aware of allegations of involvement of our officers in crude oil theft – which are quite baseless.

“Whenever we receive such information, we quickly launch an investigation. But so far, our findings have shown that most of the allegations are not true.

“However, if there is an element of truth in the allegations, we hold the alleged personnel responsible as well as apply the law according to the Arm Forces Act,” he said.

Ogalla said that severe consequences await any personnel linked to such illegality, irrespective of how highly placed the officer or rating.

“The punishment ranges from imprisonment and dismissal. We have had cases in the past and appropriate actions were taken.

“However, more than 97 per cent of these allegations are based on social media, and as such, they have no proper background.

“We are in the age of social media where anybody without proof or having full details will just put something up there (in social media platforms).

“But if you go through most of those allegations and investigate them, you find out that the basis of those allegations is unfounded,” he added.

He narrated an instance where an individual saw a vessel on the waterways, and without any prior evidence announced on social media that the vessel was involved in oil theft.

The navy boss said the individual proceeded to accuse the military of complicity without finding out if the vessel had approval from relevant authorities for the vessel to load petroleum products.

“So, the person put the information on social media, alleging that some military men were seen onboard the vessel engaging in illegal bunkering – without having the correct information.

“In spite of this, we are going to improve surveillance capability because we want to be able to strike the criminals even before they carry out the act.

“We don’t want to be on the defending side but rather take the war to the criminals and get them (arrested) even before they start the act,” he said.

Ogalla said the navy had begun expanding its coverage of the maritime domain awareness capability (or Falcon Eye) to the creeks and coastal areas, to achieve better results in its operations.

According to him, the combination of proper intelligence and technology would enable the navy to achieve the desired objectives.

Ogalla also inspected facilities at the Nigeria Navy basic Training School, Onne, Navy Training College, Onne, Naval Medical Centre, Borokiri, Nigeria Navy Hydrographic School and the Naval Shipyard Limited both in Port Harcourt. (NAN)