Doubts have continued to trail the claims by the Indigenous Surveillance Contractors that military personnel in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State were involved in an illegal bunkering incident days ago.
Conflicting feedbacks from respondents to Kristina Reports enquiries cast heavy doubts as to whether the incident occurred or not as asserted by the body, which member, Graham Pepple spoke to Kristina Reports recently.
In the said interview, Pepple had alleged that operatives of the Nigerian Navy intervened and released a vessel arrested by his men in concert with security operatives in the Ogbonga area of Bonny Island.
According to him, the said vessel was caught actively loading illegally refined products at the Ogbonga area of Bonny, close to Fuakpa Fishing Settlement in the Shell Oloma field.
The military, the Nigerian Navy and the Joint Task Force, South-South, Operation Delta Safe (OPDS), are yet to respond to enquiries by Kristina Reports or made any statement regarding the issue under review.
However, detailed investigations by Kristina Reports, show that the alleged incident may not have happened.
The respondents did not deny that a transnational pipeline was impacted inside the Ogbonga mangrove forest but none could say they saw a vessel or Cotonou boat loading products in the incident area.
There were also doubts what product was being discharged from the incidented TNP line as experts say it could only have been crude oil contrary to the claim by the pipeline surveillance contractors that it was illegally refined products.
A security guard at the Bonny Abattoir, which is situated close to the Coal Beach Bonny, who only identified himself as Abdulahi, told Kristina Reports that no gunboats or personnel of the Navy or JTF were deployed on the night of the incident.
“We dey here that night, no gunboat comot from here. You say 2am; we dey here dey play draft and no boat comot from here. Even their men dey here. If something happen them for enter river na.”
One of the security operatives at the Coal Beach, who declined any form of identification, told Kristina Reports that no signal came to them to deploy that night so there was no way they would have been on the river by that time of the night, adding that they also did not observe any activity on the river that would have required their intervention.
Also speaking, a staff of one of the multinationals in Oloma field, who preferred anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter, said he did not notice any activities on the river on the said night, adding that with a Nigerian Navy stationary security outpost at Oloma with personnel on duty there who do not leave the location any activity around there would have been noticed.
“If anything happened in the bush I may not know but from this houseboat we can see the Fuakpa area and my colleagues and I did not see any ship or Cotonou boat loading that night. Also, the Navy guys at Oloma do not leave the place; they’re always there and would have noticed anything funny happening.”
A fisherman at the Fuakpa Fishing Settlement, however, told Kristina Reports over the phone that while they were fishing at sea that night, they noticed some activity around the Ogbonga area but cannot say exactly what it was about.
When asked if he noticed any vessel or Cotonou, he said what they saw was a Cotonou boat heading to Port Harcourt but could not say at what time that was or if it was loaded with kpo fire fuel, adding that though there were gunboats on patrol he could also not tell if they were heading to or exiting the Ogbonga area from the distance where they were fishing.
Kristina Reports was also at the Polo Nwator (Ezekiel-Hart compound) waterside, which is adjacent to the Ogbonga area, asking questions. A resident, who only identified himself as Tammy, said though he was out with some friends about midnight, they did not see any boat or activity at the Ogbonga area.
On his part, when Kristina Reports asked for pictures of the vessel or the incident from Graham Pepple, who made the allegation, he could not produce any; when further pressed for the IMO registration number of the said vessel, he said they could not see it clearly as it was night.
When Kristina Reports also asked for the name of the leader of the Navy team that allegedly intervened and released the incidented vessel, Pepple could not provide it, a scenario that experts say is strange to standard military procedure.
An intelligence operative attached to one of the multinationals in Bonny Island, who preferred not to be named, volunteered that in standard military procedure, if security personnel make an intervention, they would first identify themselves and on what authority they are intervening.
“If for instance, I am sent to do anything anywhere, I would, by standard procedure identify myself and the authority on which I am acting. I would also say what I am there to do, especially, in a sensitive issue like the one we are discussing now.”
“I will provide any supporting document, identify the document and from where it is issued. The military is too regimented to be involved in cock and bull stories. Are you saying nobody else on the river that night saw this vessel from Ogbonga near Coal Beach to Sandfield area to Shell anchorage to Lighthouse and then to the Fairway Buoy?”
Efforts by Kristina Reports to reach Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) proved abortive as none of its officials contacted responded to enquiries sent to them.
Pepple, who is the Managing Director of Hample and Pegram Nigeria Limited, a pipeline surveillance contractor with SPDC, told Kristina Reports that his company had sent an incident report to Shell on the matter, though he was yet to make it available to the virtual news medium as at the time of this report.
In another twist, a pipeline surveillance contractor also working with Shell in Cawthorne Channel area, who declined identification, told Kristina Reports that he is aware of a breach in the transnational pipeline, which he said was an old setup intended for reuse in the future.
He also recalled that the old hoses seen in the pictures going viral were set on fire by the pipeline surveillance contractors in conjunction with the Nigerian Navy FOB in Bonny some time ago, asserting that “the point of the alleged breach discharges crude as against refined products as purported”.
“There is no doubt that that particular point was tapped, we know, we, pipeline surveillance contractors. But that place discharges crude and not refined products like kerosene, diesel or anything else. So, there is no way anybody would be loading refined products there, especially, when there is no kpo fire camp there.”
A military officer, who spoke to Kristina Reports on condition of anonymity, urged members of the public to disregard the false alarm being raised by the said surveillance contractors.
He said that over time, the Navy have become too sanitized to be involved in such incidents, further stressing that the Navy, Army and other security agencies will continue to do their work professionally.
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