Over 30,000 litres of
petrol allegedly stolen from a broken pipeline in the Atlas Cove, Lagos have
been recovered by operatives of the Nigerian Navy.
The pipeline was
supposed to be protected by a local security outfit, using members of the OPC,
but the security company allegedly decided to help itself, puncturing pipeline
and siphoning petroleum products. The petroleum products were imported fuel by
the NNPC but have been hijacked by the local security outfit assigned to
protect the products.
Sunnewsonline learnt the
operatives of the Nigerian Navy acting on information, stormed the place where
the security outfit was supposed to safeguard and recovered thousand of 25
litres plastic cans filled with petrol preparatory to transporting them to
Benin Republic. On sighting the naval operatives, the local security outfit
opened fire on them, which the Navy had to repel.
The continuous shooting
it was gathered jolted the villagers who ran for cover.
No lives were lost in
the shooting which lasted for hours, but the naval operatives succeeded in over
powering the fuel thieves. Speaking on the incident, the Commander NNS
Beecroft, Rear Admiral Maurice Eno said the operatives from the naval base
received intelligence indicating that vandals and thieves were operating around
Ilado, Ilashe, Corner loss, Sarkin Juju and Idimangoro area.
He said: “Accordingly,
the base monitored the activities around the area for about three weeks to
ascertain the veracity of the information. “Consequently, On December 14, at
the about 8.10 am, a detachment of personnel from the Nigerian Navy Ship
Beecroft raided the locations and discovered a storage facility having over
1500 plastic storage cans.
“One thousand three
hundred and thirty of the jerry cans contained product suspected to be Premium
Motor Spirit (PMS) believed to have been siphoned from the NNPC pipelines laid
on the island. At the time of the raid, no person was found on the storage
facility, accordingly the product was evacuated from the storage facility to
NNS Beecrpfy for safe custody.
Admiral Eno said that
the team also discovered at the siphoning point, valves connected by the
vandals to enable them steal the product.
sunnewsonline
No comments:
Post a Comment