Headlines

How Tantita saves Nigeria $43.2m daily from oil theft – Capt. Warredi Enisuoh ,disagrees with Omatseye on SAA

oil theft from vandalised pipeline

The Eyewitness Reporter

Captain Warredi Enisuoh, the Executive Director, Tantita, a private security and pipelines surveillance contractor with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) has claimed that the company is saving the country a whooping sum of $43.2m daily from oil thieves.

Captain Enisuoh, made this declaration Wednesday, November 29th, 2023, during his presentation at the maiden edition of Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) Annual Lecture, in Lagos.

He highlighted the crucial roles of the private security operator even as he noted that dealers in crude oil theft have planted CCTV cameras in creeks to monitor their illicit activities.

“We have places where grass may not grow for the next 100 years because of crude oil theft and associated activities.

” In the past, these operators utilized fire to process the crude oil but they realized that security operators have drones and night vision capabilities to see the fire trails.

“So, they moved to electricity. When they realized we discovered their illicit activities with electricity, they translated to phosphoric acid.

“They pour the crude oil into several drums and pour phosphoric acid and wait for six hours for the acid to convert the crude to diesel that will be fetched from the top.” he declared, illustrating his argument with video and graphics images of the activities of the oil thieves and pipelines vandals.

Warredi, who is also a former Director of Shipping Development at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) observed that having chased most of the perpetrators of crude oil theft away from the land areas, they moved to the creeks to attack oil well heads.

“They connect hoses from the wellheads into their storage. These transactions usually take place at night as they go to the wellheads with canoes to fetch crude oil without minding the pollution or possibility of a fire outbreak.

” If the pressure isn’t strong enough, they use a reservoir to fetch the oil. Some of these oil connections flow through cassava farms and farm settlements that you wouldn’t suspect to be involved in crude oil theft,” Warredi said.

Speaking on the activities of private security operators in Secure Anchorage Area (SAA), Warredi wondered why a nation would carve out a portion on water like on land and sell it to somebody.

“With SAA, a vessel is entering the place and you say no, you cannot enter here because you did not pay.

” However, the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) declared the right of passage on the waters for vessels?

” Nigeria is a signatory to that law, so I am sorry if I made mistakes at that time with my conviction about SAA.

“Nonetheless, I still stand by it. I will never ever entertain the situation in my country where people will pay to access the waters,” Warredi opined.

However, Captain Warredi Enisuoh position on SAA contrasts sharply with the views of Barrister Temisan Omatseye, a former Director General of NIMASA who argued that since the end of the SAA contract operated by Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL), foreign vessels spend an average of $50,000 for security patrols in the country.

Omatseye observed that OMSL SAA activities created a degree of comfort for global shipowners and filled a lacuna in securing the anchorage area.

The former NIMASA boss suggested that the Deep Blue Project assets could be deployed to fill the missing role of SAA, stressing that service could be free or at a much-subsidized cost since the former operators were adjudged to be extorting shipowners.

He proposed a Response Zone Transit Corridor concept to create a patrolled transit corridor in the key high-risk areas in the Nigerian exclusive exclusive zone (EEZ).

“A 100 nautical mile transit corridor could be created to support vessels moving in and out of Bonny/Onne/Port Harcourt.

“The corridor will be permanently patrolled by 10 security vessels providing a guaranteed response to an area 50 nautical miles wide and 110 nautical miles long of a maximum of 60 minutes, depending on the location of the incident.

“A drifting area at the outer limit of the transit corridor would replace requirements inshore for secured anchorage.

“The same concept could also cover between Lagos and Escravos areas, giving security guarantee up to 50 nautical miles offshore,” he said.

Analyses

The Anchor of Dependency: Rethinking Nigeria’s Port Financing Strategy

Monday Discourse with Ibrahim Nasiru

The recent Port Management Association of West and Central Africa (PMAWCA) conference in Lagos concluded with a dizzying array of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure promises.

Amidst the boardroom handshakes and official communiques, a familiar theme emerged: West Africa requires tens of billions of dollars to build the “Ports of the Future.”

For Nigeria, a nation grappling with aging brownfield infrastructure and the pressure to fully optimize its deep seaports, the question of infrastructure is no longer about what to build, but how to pay for it.

For decades, Nigeria’s approach to Port development has been tethered to a traditional anchor of dependency, an over-reliance on foreign loans, lopsided concession frameworks, and external development contracts.

If the nation is to truly unlock the economic sovereignty promised by the Blue Economy, it must critically re-evaluate its Port financing strategy, shifting away from debt-heavy models toward aggressive domestic capital mobilization and genuine structural reforms that address how we handle our internal maritime revenues.

Historically, major Port expansions in Sub-Saharan Africa have followed a predictable financial script.

A sovereign state secures a massive bilateral loan, frequently from foreign development banks, backed by state guarantees or the projected revenues of the Port asset itself.

On the surface, this model delivers immediate gratification: shiny new gantry cranes, dredged channels, and modern breakwaters.

Below the surface, however, this architecture creates a cycle of financial vulnerability.

When Port assets are financed through rigid, foreign-denominated debt, the pressure to service that debt often overrides the Port’s primary economic mandate, which is to lower the cost of doing business.

High debt-servicing costs force Port authorities to maintain punitive tariff structures, expensive regulatory charges, and inflated berthing fees.

Consequently, while the infrastructure appears world-class, the Port becomes economically uncompetitive, driving shipping lines to cheaper regional alternatives and defeating the purpose of the initial investment.

To break this loop, Nigeria must confront a glaring fiscal paradox sitting right inside its balance sheet: the architecture of the Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) internal revenue framework.

As revealed in recent National Assembly budget defenses under Managing Director Dr. Abubakar Dantsoho, the NPA is projecting a staggering ₦1.489 trillion in internally generated revenue (IGR) for the 2026 fiscal year, hot on the heels of generating nearly ₦2 trillion in 2025.

The agency is a financial powerhouse, generating enormous wealth from ship dues, cargo fees, and concession tariffs.

Yet, because of rigid fiscal remittance laws, a massive chunk of this liquidity is swallowed directly by the federation’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and swept straight into the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The NPA is effectively treated as a cash cow to finance federal budget deficits rather than being allowed to legally retain and reinvest its own earnings back into the infrastructure that generates them.

Forcing an agency to remit massive sums to the federal treasury while simultaneously asking it to borrow foreign capital or beg for funding via the Central Bank just to dredge a channel or rebuild a collapsing berth is an unsustainable contradiction.

True financial independence requires a sweeping legislative rethink of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to allow the NPA to establish a dedicated, ring-fenced infrastructure retention fund.

If the agency could legally retain just 20 to 30 percent more of its trillions in actual collections specifically for a Port Modernization Sinking Fund, it could fully self-finance the urgently needed overhauls of the 100-year-old Apapa Port and the decaying infrastructure at Tin Can Island without adding a single dollar of foreign debt to Nigeria’s sovereign balance sheet.

Furthermore, this internal liquidity could be used as equity to issue local currency maritime infrastructure bonds on the domestic capital market, allowing Nigerian pension funds to invest in an asset class that generates predictable, long-term, inflation-hedged cash flows.

Ultimately, breaking the anchor of dependency requires moving past the illusion that a nation must always look outward or borrow its way to maritime dominance.

True Port efficiency cannot coexist with a system that starves its primary trade gateway of operational liquidity in the name of national revenue extraction.

As Nigeria positions itself to capture the trade volumes of a developing continent, its leadership must realize that financial engineering is just as critical as civil engineering.

We must design financing models that allow the maritime sector to feed itself first before feeding the national treasury.

Until we cut the chains of debt-heavy external financing and reform our internal revenue retention laws, our Ports will not function as engines of economic liberation, but rather as highly sophisticated toll gates filtering both national wealth and foreign debt back to external creditors.

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja

Headlines

NPA: Starving the goose that lays the golden eggs

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru

Tomorrow, on Monday Discourse, Ibrahim Nasiru looks at what he describes as the paradox in the financing system of the Nigerian Ports Authority( NPA).

An agency which lays the golden eggs that feed the nation, yet has to borrow from external creditors to fix its infrastructures.

On Monday Discourse, Nasiru advises government to rethink Nigeria’s Port Financing Strategy

“The NPA is projecting a staggering ₦1.489 trillion in revenue for 2026. Yet, why are we still looking outward to borrow billions of dollars for Port Modernization?

“The truth is, Nigeria’s Ports are trapped in a fiscal paradox.

“We treat the NPA as a cash cow to fund federal deficits, sweeping its massive trillions into the central treasury, while leaving our 100-year-old Ports to starve of the vital liquidity needed for self maintenance.

“Forcing an agency to bleed cash to the treasury while begging foreign creditors for infrastructure loans is an unsustainable contradiction.

“If we are serious about the Blue Economy, it’s time for a legislative rethink that allows internal revenue retention for a dedicated Port Modernization Fund.

Read Nasiru’s analysis on why Nigerian Ports must feed themselves before they can sustainably feed the nation.

Keep a date with Nasiru on Monday Discourse tomorrow ,Monday, June 1st, 2026.

It’s a must read

Headlines

NRC suspends Warri- Itakpe train service over operational concerns

Funso OLOJO, Editor

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has announced the temporary suspension of Warri–Itakpe Train Service (WITS) due to what the management described as operational exigency and technical advice from the Corporation’s Engineers.

The temporary suspension, according to a public statement by the NRC, has become necessary to enable the Corporation carry out critical operational assessments aimed at ensuring continued safety, reliability, and improved service delivery on the corridor.

“The NRC regrets the inconvenience this development may cause passengers and other stakeholders, and assures the public that efforts are currently ongoing to resolve the issues within the shortest possible time.

“Passengers and intending travelers will be duly informed before the end of the week on the date for the resumption of normal train operations.

“The Corporation remains committed to safe, efficient, and customer-friendly rail services across the country and appreciates the understanding, patience, and continued support of the public during this period” the NRC declared.