Abia NSCDC to prosecute 14 suspected pipeline vandals
Abia State command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps [NSCDC] has concluded plans to commence the prosecution of fourteen suspected oil pipeline vandals they arrested with the last one week.
Speaking with newsmen in Umuahia over the weekend while parading fours new suspected pipeline vandals the state commandant of the corps Dr Benito Eze said that they would also be arraigned after investigations had been concluded.
Eze gave the names of the four suspects to include Peyer Ugochukwu (28), Uzoma Anyim (48), Winner Onwuegbu (28) and Udoka Nwokorie (27), saying that they were caught by his men while stealing petroleum products after breaking the pipeline.
He expressed worry that the spate of pipeline vandalism in the area had been on the increase since the Port Harcourt Refinery resumed the pumping of petroleum products to Aba and Enugu depots of the NNPC.
Eze said that in the last two weeks in the month of August that his men had apprehended about eighteen suspected oil pipeline vandals along the popular Osisioma pipeline highway.
He said, “Between the second week of August to date, no fewer than 18 suspected vandals have been arrested by this command along Osisioma area of the NNPC pipeline highway.”
The Abia NSCDC boss explained that the suspects usually perforate the pipelines where they fix nuzzles with which they siphon the pumped products into containers and after leaves it to over flow its contents on farm land.
He said that more than six trucks and different sizes of jerry cans, eight cars and buses, were confiscated during the period, adding that they are parked at their Isiala Ngwa field office.
Eze warned oil marketers in the state against patronizing pipeline vandals, saying that the command was still on the trail of those that buy products from suspected vandals. He attributed the act of pipeline vandalism to greed among the youths, warning that anybody caught vandalizing pipelines and government property would be made to face the full weight of the law.
Eze gave the assurance that the command under his watch would not compromise in the discharge of its legitimate core mandate in the state which include among other security of oil pipelines across the country.
One of the four suspects, Nwokorie, a native of UmudiawaOfeiyi-Ohuhu in Umuahia South Local Government Area, said in an interview with newsmen that he was arrested when he came home to see his ailing parents.
Nwokorie, who claimed to be a student of Ebonyi State University, saidthat he was arrested during a raid of his area by men of the NSCDC,after they searched and found some jerry cans filled with petroleumproducts.
The suspect said that the two 50-liter jerry-cans of petroleumproducts found in his house by the security men were purchased frompeople who scooped the product from burst pipeline in the area. He said that a pipeline that passed through the community got burstand spilled the petroleum product on the Imo River and its bank,adding that some youths of the area, who saw the development as anopportunity, besieged the river to scoop the product for sale.