For three days, the 6th Amphibious Division of the Nigerian Army based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, detained and held ‘Fisayo Soyombo, EQ’s founder and editor-in-chief, incommunicado.

Soyombo was investigating the underworld of multi-billion dollar oil bunkering in Nigeria’s oil-abundant Niger Delta region when the army detained him.

On Saturday morning, Soyombo was interviewed on The Morning Show, an Arise TV live commentary programme. He described how the army deliberately sabotaged his personal security by transmitting the information extracted from him to oil bunkerers.

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EQ captures some of its founder’s words in excerpts from the interview:

WAS HE ARRESTED?

Everyone ran away other than me. I came forward and had an interaction with them [soldiers]. One, there was no arrest. The Nigerian Army did not arrest me. They spotted me, flashed their torch and I came out. And I wanted to open a conversation with them.

I didn’t show them my ID because the illegal bunkerers had said they had settled everyone and the guys [soldiers] who came were the ones who were not settled, and a conversation was going on to settle them. So, I just thought it was a settlement conversation and I came forward. So, they did not arrest me. It’s not like they chased me.

They didn’t get anyone. All the other guys fled into the bush but I stayed because, at the end of the day, I knew I had nothing to hide. The real grouse of the army, one, is that I did not carry them along. 

I won’t deny that I have low trust for Nigerian public institutions. I didn’t trust the army; I didn’t carry them along. But I had also known that illegal oil bunkerers were bribing different people in various security formations and I would endanger my life by carrying them along if I didn’t know who was who. So, that’s the first problem they had, that you were doing this story and did not involve us. Now, I have been vindicated. Because I spent three days in a military detention and everything I told the highest levels of the army, the illegal bunkerers were telling me when I left. 

When they picked me, it was around 2 am. We were in the bush until maybe 4 or 5 am. A soldier stole my two phones. The army has to fish out that soldier and punish him. You can’t arrest people and then your man is stealing. And when we left, they took me to a camp close to that place. We were there until about 3 pm. I did not say a word about who I was because I felt it was too general a place to make that kind of statement. They all felt I was an illegal oil bunkerer and I played along until they took me to 6th Division. And I thought from then, I was speaking with people in offices who were investigating the case. 

That was when I said, ‘I am actually an undercover journalist; this is proof’. But everything I told them, the things I wrote in my statement, as I got out yesterday, illegal oil bunkerers were telling me: who are you? We thought you were one of us? This is what they said you are? They said you are a detective, an undercover journalist, is it true? So, was I not right by not carrying the army along? 

How can you grill me at the 6th Division and every single thing I told you and as I got out yesterday, illegal oil bunkerers were telling me every single thing and they made no mistakes. 

‘THE PRESS IS NOT FREE’

The press is not free. In a number of ways, one of them is that people in security institutions don’t want to hear the word “investigation.” Why are you investigating? Are you the police? Are you the army?

They can investigate and prosecute. The police, for instance, can investigate and prosecute. As a journalist, I cannot prosecute, but I can investigate and publish. They don’t want the press to do any form of independent work. They said, why didn’t you come to us? You want to do a story on illegal oil bunkering, journalists come to us all the time, even foreign journalists come, and we take them around.

But why do you want me to see what you are showing me if your house is clean. And as an undercover journalist, I would go there and come out with nothing but a clean report. All my stories are not negative. When I did “Prophets of Their Pockets“, prophets who were collecting money to issue fake prophesies, the Catholic Church did not take any Kobo from me, gave me no fake prophesy. I dedicated one series to it to say the Catholic Church, I went in, no fake prayers, no fake prophesy, nobody asked me for money. So, if you are clean and I go in undercover, you don’t have to be worried because the outcome would be your cleanliness. But because there’s so much to hide, they don’t just want the media to do its job. They just feel that by making claims to independence, then you are giving them bad news. And it’s proof of how bad the system is.

‘OIL BUNKERING CANNOT STOP’

Illegal oil bunkering cannot stop in this country; I can tell you that for free. Some of the senior army officials were saying President Bola Tinubu has said “no to bunkering, you people think it’s a joke? It will not end because illegal bunkerers have collaborators in security formations, not one, not two, not three.

My phones were eventually releases after some pressure; but it took a long time and they haven’t punished the soldier who did it. Do I still have a story? I will be honest, it’s the first time I have genuinely felt my security compromised. I believe the Nigerian Army, the acting spokesman of the Nigerian Army deliberately compromised my security by releasing that statement and linking me to oil bunkerers. EQ announced that I was in detention and made no mention of oil bunkering. Now you’ve gone to tell oil bunkerers. That’s what you did, that this guy was on your trail. 

PERSONAL SECURITY CONCERNS

My utmost concern now is my security has been compromised by the Nigerian Army that should be interested in ending illegal oil bunkering and should have seen me as a partner. 

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They realised on Wednesday evening that I was not an oil bunkerer. They picked me around 2 am on Wednesday and I was in that camp until evening. They knew since Wednesday because I gave them my real name. They were saying even if you are a journalist, can’t a journalist be an illegal oil bunkerer? 

I told them that all my stories have been experiencing the crimes I am trying to expose firsthand and providing hard evidence. I have gone to prison undercover, I have spent 10 days in a psychiatrist hospital as a patient undercover to write a story on it. I tracked an orphanage home for 19 months undercover. I got myself tracked to Burkina Faso undercover. I was giving them the titles, go online and check. That’s the track record for years. So, I believe that they knew immediately on Wednesday that I was an investigative journalist.

I think the army should be the one to answer the question as to why they kept me. If it did not get to the media yesterday that I was in detention, I would still be there. I repeatedly asked them, I need to speak to my lawyer. I’ve not committed murder. Let’s even say that I am an illegal oil bunkerer, I’m saying I want to talk to my lawyer. That one phone call, I should be able to make it to my lawyer and they denied me, and instructed all soldiers around there that not one of them should give me their phone. I must not use a phone to make a call or send a text. 

If not for the plans I had made before embarking on the story. Those plans enabled my organisation, EQ, to know my location. If I hadn’t made such plans using technology, I would still be in detention.

They told me that “we would investigate as long as we like, even if it’s one month, if it’s two months.” The only reason I’m out now is because it got to the press. What are you afraid of? Okay, you thought I was an illegal oil bunkerer when you picked me. You’ve then found out that I am an investigative journalist, why are you keeping me. By Wednesday night, they had become calmer in their relations with me. They were initially hostile because they thought I was truly a criminal. By the time they found out in the evening, they had become relaxed and took me to the house of a commander of anti-bunkering team, I think Masigu, if I get the name correctly. I sat down in his house, we talked and gave me food. So, they knew I wasn’t a criminal at that point. I am an incurable Liverpool fan. The Liverpool-Real Madrid match, I watched a good part of it in his house. They knew I wasn’t a criminal, that’s why they allowed all that. 

So, who were the interests who thought that if this guy got out, there was trouble? That Nigerian Army spokesman has to issue another statement, Colonel Danjuma [Danjuma Jonah Danjuma], and explain to Nigerians why the things I told the army in my statement got out before me and the illegal oil bunkerers were telling me exactly the things that I told you. They [oil bunkerers] were telling me that they even watched my last interview on Arise TV that they sent to them from 6th Division.

If we have to end oil bunkering, we have to look at all security formations. That’s where the cleanup should start from. It’s not the people on the street who are looking for what to eat.

‘FRIENDSHIP WITH BUNKERERS’

You have to realise that I obtain hard evidence for my stories by experiencing the entire process. So, we were to load crude oil onto a truck and move it to Enugu where a buyer was waiting. Some move it to Enugu, some move it to Abia and some go as far as Kano. We were to move, but I wanted to see the site. So, I insisted.

So, in the last minute, they [the oil bunkerers] said I should drop my bag. Of course, they knew it could go south.

The two guys who were the foot soldiers are not the people I am interested in. Those are people who are victims of the country, they have no job and want to make ends meet. They need to eat somehow. Those are not the main people, they have bigger backers and those are the people that should be exposed. There is no society that can function well when institutions are lax. When you can commit crimes and the institutions that should prevent the crimes, prosecute you for being a criminal, are your collaborators.

For me, the bigger deal is security formations take bribes. It will shock you the kind of people who escort illegal oil bunkerers out of Port Harcourt. The army spokesman knows it. I am not going to mention the security formation now because as I said, the army spokesman has already compromised my security by going online to say you found a journalist at the site of an illegal oil bunkering with a “gang of thieves”.

‘BAD APPLES IN THE ARMY OUTNUMBER THE GOOD ONES’

The real gang of thieves are in that office.

I will be honest, there are people who are clean in the army. It’s one of the reasons why trucks get burnt, why illegal oil bunkering sites get destroyed. Another reason is that some don’t get bribed and then they sabotage the process. But yes, there are clean men in the military but the major cleanup has to happen in there. How can you grill a journalist at 6th Division and the information is out with oil bunkerers? That’s an indictment.

There are good ones, but the bad apples outnumber the good apples. 

I review my security apparatus from time to time. This is the highest level that before I release a story, an agency that should be on my side even if they were offended that I did not carry them along then went to rat me out. That’s how I see it. This is a new level for me that I need to deal with. I don’t think it’s going to change how I approach stories in the future. However, I do know that I am running out of time. Maybe I have one, two, three more undercover investigations to do and I would say that’s it for now.

I would rather stop than change the approach. The exposes are not for the adventure or the fun of it. It’s that we need to understand the problems of this country. If we don’t even understand the scale of our problems, we cannot begin to talk of cleaning up the system.

Look at what I did on smugglers. You closed the borders and said no moving of rice into the country. But you then have people in the Nigeria Customs Service that supervise the smuggling of rice. The president should open the borders. Let people move in rice legitimately and support local farmers. You are destroying the economy. If we cannot meet our rice need, rice is a staple, and the president cannot say let’s come up with a five-year plan to support local farmers? People have to know that in their country, they can thrive by doing honest businesses. Now you’ve closed the borders, then people feel the only way to make money from rice is to smuggle. You are ruining the economy. Someone has to expose that so that we know our problems.

When people bring in rice, they hide other things in there. Before the army picked me, I got intel that they [smugglers] were going to bring other things that were not rice. You are compromising national security and you are destroying the economy. So, it’s not just about exposing the stories, you need to know the danger that some of these decisions pose to our collective interest.

When you have people in border areas who only think they can smuggle to make a living, they become criminals, they want to have guns. The day they are not smuggling but they need to use their guns, they will use it on you and me, if they have to. The borders are so lax.

I got a fake international passport in this country and I travelled through the borders out and in and nobody found me out. We cannot have a country like that and think you are fighting insecurity. Put in billions into security formations, and the borders are so porous that people can bring in anything, including arms and ammunition, and people who do it are connected to some of the people in the highest levels in security establishments in this country, then what are we talking about?

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CRUDE OIL THEFT UNDERESTIMATED

First, I can tell you that the figures that are being put out in terms of crude oil theft are an underestimation of the real figures.

The truck that we used was to move 50,000 litres of crude oil. We had reached the point where it would be loaded; the hose had been passed out. If that one person [soldier] who was annoyed that he didn’t get bribed did not talk, two trucks would have moved because there was a second truck that was to come behind us.

That’s just one point of loading. I had seen roughly four other potential crude oil theft points in Port Harcourt alone. Add the other the oil-producing states, it’s a lot of crude that the country is losing. But again, there is no institution that can say for a fact the barrels of crude being lifted from the refineries daily. So, it’s not only the illegal oil bunkerers that are thieves, some of the people whose job officially is to supervise the process have their hands soiled as well. I don’t see the situation improving anytime soon because what will be needed will be to overhaul the security apparatus. As I said, the saboteurs outnumber the good eggs.
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