Soldier, 3 others arrested for hijacking petrol tanker in Lagos

A serving Lance Corporal with the Nigerian Army, Iwegbulam Peter, has been arrested along with three others for allegedly attempting to hijack a 44,000 litres AGO tanker along the Osodi/Apapa expressway.

The attempt to hijack the tanker was foiled by operatives of the Federal Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos State Police Command. It was learnt that the FSARS operatives are still on the trail of a fleeing member of the gang said to also be a serving soldier. It was gathered that the gang trailed the tanker which had loaded at one of the tank farms along the expressway, and was heading toward Oshodi before it intercepted the truck.

It was also learnt that the truck driver and his conductor were allegedly ordered by the soldiers to handover the truck.

The suspect accused the driver and his conductor of being involved in oil bunkering and ordered that they should enter their operational vehicle, while suspected leader of the gang, Ikechukwu Ezekwe, 44, drove the truck away.

FSARS operatives who were contacted, tracked the snatched truck to Ajah, where Ikechukwu was about to sell the content to a ready buyer.

Ikechukwu, who admitted to have hired the services of the two soldiers, disclosed that he would have shared the amount realised from the sale of the stolen content on a 50/50 percentage with the soldiers.

According to the father of two: “This is my first time of hijacking an AGO tanker. We used to hijack petroleum product from pipeline vandals, posing as security agents. But the clamp down on vandals by security agents, also affected business for us.

“I initiated the plan to hijack the tanker loaded with 45,000 AGO. I invited this soldier (pointing at Peter) and another soldier. On the day of the operation, on a Friday, we waited at Mile Two for over two hours, for tanker loaded with AGO (diesel) and not petrol because the buyer insisted on AGO. By the time I sighted the truck loaded with the specified product, I told the driver to drive behind, until we got to Cele, from where I took the tanker. I was already at Ajah where I saw the buyer was driving in front of me, to lead me to where the content would be offloaded. But immediately he sighted the Police van block the truck, he zoomed off. The arrangement was for him to buy the product at N130 per litres, instead of N180/N190 sold per litres at the depot”

On his part, the Lance Corporal Peter denied having any knowledge that the truck was to be hijacked. Rather, he said, “When Ikechukwu contacted me, he said I should assist him to intercept some bunkerers along the Oshodi/Apapa expressway. He told me he was a tanker driver. By the time we intercepted the truck, we ordered them to enter into the taxi we used. Inside the taxi were another soldier, the driver and myself. We interrogated the driver and conductor who said they were coming from a tank farm where the product was bought. They also showed us the invoice. We drove for a while and asked them to alight when we were convinced they were not bunkerers.