We remain committed to fight against insecurity, oil theft — Navy

The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla has assured Nigerian Navy’s commitments to fight insecurity and crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region.

Ogalla made this known in Onitsha while addressing journalists after an inspection of facilities at the Naval Outpost, Onitsha as part of his tour of units and establishments of the Nigeria Navy.

He noted that the tour of units and establishments of the Nigerian Navy had become imperative to assess the situation on ground, with a view to finding out strategies on how to improve on their operations.

“We have seen some challenges and noted what to do, particularly in the area of policing the country and the fight against oil theft in the Niger Delta, which is one of the critical areas we have assessed and are mapping out strategies to improve on the anti oil theft.

“The purpose of this visit is to first of all see our units and establishments as they are so that we assess the situation on ground to find strategies on how to improve on our operations.

“We have seen some difficult challenges and the environment Naval Outpost Onitsha is operating in, we can see the effect of erosion on our shoreline, we have seen the fence that has collapsed. This particular unit gets flooded to the foundation, we have noted what to do and at the same time seeking the collaboration of relevant agencies and stakeholders to come to our aid in rescuing this particular unit from being completely submerged by erosion.

“The base has been able to contribute effectively to the policing duties which is one of their roles here, we are happy that the challenges they have did not significantly impact negatively on their effectiveness.

“We have taken note of some of the things to do so that we can improve particularly in the area of anti oil theft which is one of the critical areas we are assessing to bring out strategies to improve our operations, ” he said.