Police nab suspected pipeline vandal with 10,000 fuel

http://www.gatewaymail.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Commissioner-of-Police-Almajid-Ali..jpg

 

NIGERIA: AT a time scarcity of fuel is still biting harder, a suspected pipeline vandal, Nosa Unity, has been arrested by the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly stealing petroleum products.

The man was apprehended around 3am on January 6, 2016 along Odogbolu/Ijebu-Ode Expressway, Ogun State in possession of 10,000 litres of fuel.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, who paraded the suspect at the Eleweran Police Headquarters on Monday in Abeokuta, said that Unity was arrested by the special Anti-Robbery Squad when he was found in a white Scannia truck, EDO AFZ 525 XA.

According to him, the suspect was transporting a truck loaded with petroleum product in rubber tanks containing 10,000 litres of petroleum products.
And in an interview with GatewayMail the suspect said that he was innocent of the allegation, saying that he had never been involved in any pipeline vandalization at any time.

Unity said that he was a truck driver contracted to convey goods which he never knew was a vandalised petroleum products.
“This is my first time of meeting them. I am a truck driver and my duty is to deliver bags of rice gotten from the market to the company, and that’s what I’ve been doing,” he said.  “On the 24th of December, I was coming home from Edo State to spend the Yuletide with my family, but because I have no money on me and there was no job I decided to work to get a little money.”
Unity added: “’Then I met Seun who told me that he had a business for me and when I asked him he said he wants me to help him transport chemicals from Ibafo to Shagamu and we negotiated about my charges which he obliged to.

“He took me to the factory where he kept the containers and he said they were just 11 with an additional one of that is as big as a Geepee tank then we embarked on the journey.”
“When we got to Shagamu we met the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) who told me to park and open the back of the truck for inspection, which I did without any hesitation.  And when the police open the truck they discovered that I was transporting vandalized petroleum product,” Unity further stressed.

The suspect also said: “They told me to explain how I come about it, but I said that I’m not the owner that I should call the person with me in the truck who is the owner of the tanks to explain better.
“But to my uttermost surprise the guy had ran away leaving me speechless before the police men, and that’s why I’ve been detained in their custody.”
 * By Adegoke Blessing and Ajogwu Nneka