Oil workers have denied an allegation levelled against them by the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, that they were the brains behind crude oil theft in the country.
The workers said in a statement on Thursday accused the politicians and influential people of perpetrating the heinous act.
Reacting to a statement in a national daily (not the Punch) “Oil workers are the ones stealing crude oil,” the workers under the aegis of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, described the statement as unimaginable, unguided, mischievous and uncouth of a Presidential Adviser.
It said, “Oil workers through their unions took serious exemption to such perturbing, cynical, alarming notion which they strongly believed was clownishly and flippantly discharged, unmindful of its implications and ramification.”
The workers alleged that the criminal activities of crude oil theft were perpetrated by highly placed and influential individuals and politicians, adding that, “Kuku is only being economical with the truth and trying to cover up with his allegation against the workers.”
The unions asked the Federal Government to call to order the Special Adviser to the President against unguided and unsubstantiated provocative utterances in the interest of industrial peace and the respect for the nation that seriously yearn for peace at this relatively volatile moment of her national life.
They expressed their readiness to take up the Special Adviser to the President unless he substantiated his allegation, saying that the Joint Tax Force should also help in unmasking those behind criminal act of crude oil theft and other national sabotage activities.