The
Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps on Saturday sealed off an
unregistered filling station in Sabo, Ikorodu, Lagos State for allegedly
patronising pipeline vandals.
The Public Relations Officer for the state command, Chibuzor Mefor, told PUNCH Metro that the employees of the filling station were arrested while offloading petrol from buses into the depot.
Mefor said, “We got information that
pipeline vandalism was common in the area and we also learnt that a
filling station was patronising them. So, on Friday night, around
9:30pm, we noticed some buses going into the filling station as if they
wanted to buy fuel.
“Investigations revealed that there was a
garage behind the filling station where the buses were offloading the
kegs. We continued to watch them and after sometime, we swooped on them.
The owner of the filling station immediately fled with his driver but
we were able to apprehend his son, one of the attendants of the filling
station and the security guard.
“We were able to seize one of the buses
and we discovered 40 kegs laden with 50 litres of petrol each. The
suspects were taken to the command headquarters on Saturday and
investigations are ongoing.”
The NSCDC authorities said efforts were being made to apprehend the owner of the filling station.
The son of the owner, it was learnt, is a
university graduate. But he claimed he was not working at the filling
station but had only come to pay his father a visit when he was
apprehended.
According to the NSCDC, the filling station has no name.
However, the suspects said the management was waiting for approval for a franchise agreement.
It was learnt that on their way back
from the operation, NSCDC arrested another driver conveying 33,000
litres of petrol in a truck.
The Commandant, NSCDC, Lagos State
Command, Clement Adesuyi, lamented that pipeline vandalism had become
the biggest threat to the country’s economy.
PUNCH
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