Rivers State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, has charged traditional rulers to help in the fight against crude oil theft in their domains.
Governor Fubara, gave the charge while declaring open the 117th/118th Combined Quarterly General Meeting of Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers at their Secretariat in Port Harcourt on Monday.
According to him, it is the duty of everybody, especially traditional rulers, to join efforts together to ensure that there is stability and unfettered progress of Nigeria..
The Governor maintained that it should be the concern of everybody to support and see Nigeria progress as a stable country while advancing economically, adding that this is possible only when there is high production of crude oil, as the mainstay of the national economy.
He said: “I want to see a different society from this hour. The Federal Government is doing everything to see that our crude oil production level increases. But every day, we are having issues of illegal bunkering and pipeline vandalisation and all the associated problems.
“All these people that are carrying out these evil acts, they’re not coming from the moon, they live in our communities, we know them. I am charging this council, as a first step, take charge of your communities.
“If there is any information that you need to share with us, share with us. In the overall, we need our country to progress. We need our country to be stable. We need our country to grow economically. It is through only one means: our oil production.
“We are charging you, to please go back and take charge of your communities. I assure you of our support. If there is anything that we need to do, if it means government sending you some little support financially to create your own vigilante to help, we will do it.”
