THE prosperity of every nation and the progress and well-being of its people are, to a large extent, a function of how much wealth it can create and sustain for itself.
Nations that have the capacity to create, retain and control a substantial quantum of wealth will, all things being equal, have the ability to ensure a qualitatively higher standard of living for their people than others with less capacity.
It is largely on account of these and other factors that nations and governments the world over which are keen on the positive transformation of their economies and improving the lives of their people take the exploitation, control and utilisation of natural resources very seriously.
The discovery of oil in the country in the 1970s and now in larger commercial quantities at the Jubilee Field has brought in its wake opportunities and challenges.
While the opportunities largely rest on raking in more revenue through crude exports and promoting local industries through the processing and utilisation of the by-products of the crude, the challenges have been many and varied.
One of such key challenges is in the domain of security; that is, how to effectively protect the oil fields from damage and sabotage, as well as theft of the product by well-organised gangs that have specialised in stealing the product.
Reports abound in many oil-rich nations, particularly our sub-regional neighbour, Nigeria, where criminal gangs and aggrieved local people have combined to siphon and destroy huge quantities of crude oil which, otherwise, could have brought more substantial revenue to the state.
The story of the Niger Delta, where shadowy groups are reported to have the capacity to load tankers with crude oil outside the knowledge and control of the Federal government, is ample testimony to this assertion.
If ever we had underrated the capacity of any such groups to operate in the country and deprive the state of the maximum benefits from the oil find, we need to rethink and react fast.
The report that eight people have been arrested for siphoning crude oil from the Saltpond Oil Fields in the Central Region at the weekend must awaken us to the reality of the existence of these groups in areas where oil exploration goes on.
The group was reported to have already siphoned a significant quantity of the crude, using an array of equipment, and had actually some how refined and transferred the product into a waiting tanker on the shore when they were apprehended (see front page).
We have reason to believe that this clandestine act has been ongoing for some time now and that it took the information provided and the appropriate response of the police to arrest the culprits.
This, in our view, is a practical manifestation of the kind of positive dividends we can reap as a nation when there is good police-public co-operation in the fight against organised crime and the activities of nation wreckers.
However, beyond this, the important question is, was there any security at the oil fields at the time of the incident or even before? If there was, where was the security? Why that negligence? Has the oil field been abandoned altogether?
As we get set to pour the nation’s first oil from the Jubilee Field in the next few days, we would want to remind all stakeholders in our oil — the government, the oil companies and the public — to take security at the oil facilities seriously in order not only to forestall similar incidents but also ensure a safe and conducive atmosphere for the exploitation of the resource for the collective benefit of the people.
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