NSCDC Nabs 3 Illegal Miners In Delta, Vows Pipeline Vandalism, Oil theft Will End By December

Three suspected illegal miners were arrested in Ugbokodo Waterside in Okpe Local Government Area of Delta State by members of the solid mineral unit of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC).

The suspects were apprehended after receiving an intelligence tip-off, according to Akinsanya Iskilu Abiodun, State Commandant of the NSCDC, who spoke through DSC Emeka Peters Okwechime, the Public Relations Officer.

Okwechime named the suspects as Emmanuel Eze, 32, from Ebonyi state, Samuel Ige, 40, from Oyede in the Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta, and Isa Idris, 18, from Kano state in a statement made available to journalists in Warri.

According to him, the suspects who had been given administrative bail would be brought before the court once the investigation was finished.

The NSCDC’s Delta Command asserts that the recent wave of crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, illegal dealings in petroleum products, and other types will be history by December of this year.

Acting on a directive from the president and the NSCDC’s Commandant General, Dr. Abubakar Audi Ahmed, the Delta State Commandant of the NSCDC, Akinsanya Iskilu, reportedly urged his men to participate in kinetic and spontaneous operations through a well-coordinated but radical strategy that was started by members of the Commandant Tactical Squad and the Rejigged Anti-Vandal Squad with the intention of bringing the low, high, and mighty to justice. 

The squad was tasked with searching every forest, bush, compound, creek, water body, station, dump site, dump yard, and other places sufficiently suspected of being used for sabotage or illegal dealing in petroleum products. 

According to him, the squad was also given the task of capturing, detaining, and transporting all trucks, boats, SUVs, vandalised items, power installations, telecommunications, railway installations, and other public infrastructures to the State Headquarters in Asaba.

While outlining the recent successes of the command, the public relations officer mentioned that the command also destroyed artisanal refineries in Alfa Marine in Koko, the seat of the Warri North Council. 

The suspects, according to him, jumped into rivers and swamps when they spotted members of the Rejigged Anti-Vandal Squad (RAS). 

In an effort to catch the fleeing suspects, plainclothes personnel have been strategically positioned throughout the LGA, according to Dsc Okwechime.

He revealed that the NSCDC RAS destroyed and set on fire a variety of tools and equipment used in the illicit trade in petroleum products, including big metal tanks, drums of suspected AGO-containing oil, hoses used by the Vandals, and other things.