The Niger Delta Roundtable has called for the decentralisation of pipeline surveillance contracts across states and communities in the region, arguing that the current centralised arrangement has failed to curb crude oil theft and has concentrated billions of naira in public funds within a single entity. Following an emergency meeting in Port Harcourt, the group issued a statement detailing what it described as an abysmal performance of the existing contract, pointing to persistent illegal bunkering, asset vandalism, and significant revenue losses that continue to undermine Nigeria’s fiscal position.
The group cited data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) indicating that in the first eight months of 2025, Nigeria lost 93.74 million barrels of crude oil and condensate production against budget targets. At an average Bonny Light price of $73.06 per barrel, that loss translates to $6.85 billion in revenue that was produced but never reached the federation account. The group noted that the 2025 federal budget assumed daily production of 2.06 million barrels, but actual output averaged just 1.673 million barrels per day—a shortfall of 390,000 barrels daily. By January 2026, production stood at 1.459 million barrels per day against a 2026 budget benchmark of 1.84 million.
The fiscal implications of this production gap are severe. The group calculated that in July and August 2025 alone, the oil sector posted a combined revenue gap of N941.23 billion. In August, royalty inflows came in at N682.28 billion against a projection of N1.144 trillion, a single-month hole of N461.89 billion. Measured over seven months against prorated budget targets, the 2025 oil revenue shortfall reached N18.61 trillion. “Every naira of that gap is a salary delayed somewhere, a debt serviced through fresh borrowing, a state government receiving less than it planned for,” the statement read.
The group argued that the existing surveillance model, which places responsibility for protecting Nigeria’s entire pipeline network under a single contractor, has created structural vulnerabilities. With no competitive pressure and no enforceable performance standards, the contractor has no incentive to outperform. The discovery of major illegal refining operations as far inland as Abia State in early 2026, the group noted, demonstrates that criminal enterprises have studied the boundaries of the current surveillance model and learned to operate beyond them. A single contractor covering a fixed perimeter cannot effectively address an organised oil theft network that operates across multiple states and waterways.
The group proposed an alternative: corridor-specific surveillance awarded to multiple qualified Niger Delta enterprises, each rooted in the communities they protect. This approach, they argued, would bring granular local knowledge to bear on a problem that a centralised operation has demonstrably failed to solve. It would also distribute the economic benefits of the contract—worth billions of naira annually—across a broader range of Niger Delta enterprises rather than concentrating them in a single structure. Critically, it would eliminate the single point of failure that the current arrangement represents, creating a fallback system if any individual operation is disrupted.
The Niger Delta Roundtable demanded an independent performance audit by the NUPRC and a credible upstream advisory firm, with findings published within 90 days. It also called for a transparent, competitive decentralisation of surveillance responsibilities across producing corridors, with enforceable production performance standards and financial penalties for underperformance built into every new agreement. The group emphasised that fiscal scrutiny should apply to this contract as the government rightly demands of every other item of public expenditure.
The statement concluded by framing the issue in terms of both efficiency and equity. With President Bola Tinubu’s ambition to produce three million barrels per day by 2030, the group argued that Niger Delta communities are not asking to inherit a problem but offering to solve one. “They know these waters. They know these pipelines. They know who is stealing and where. Decentralise this contract. Give the Niger Delta the mandate and the accountability structure to protect its own resource base. The federation account will feel the difference.”
