Navy vows to ‘terrorise’ economic saboteurs

THE Nigerian Navy has vowed to ‘terrorise’ all economic saboteurs especially those engaging in siphoning of petroleum products met for local consumption to neighbouring countries for undue profiteering.

Giving this warning in Lagos, the Commanding Officer, Forward Operating Base (FOB) Badagry, Navy Captain Simon Gerson Dogo, said they are out to wipe out every illegal smuggling of petroleum products that have been thriving for some times.

Explaining how they seized a Republic of Benin-made wooden boat from smugglers at Pashe Creeks, along Badagry Port Novo river–Captain Dogo said in consonance with the Chief of Naval Staff zero tolerance for economic sabotage, they have been engaging in aggressive patrol which led to the arrest of the boats with over 1000 jerry cans of 25 litres capacity with only 90 of the cans filled with Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) before they were busted.

He said, “Our men went on patrol about two Saturdays ago and entered Pashe Creek. In the process, they ran into the smugglers who were loading those jerry cans into the wooden boats for transfer to the Benin Republic. Immediately they sighted our men, they jumped into the water and dashed away. I was called about 3am and told them to toll the boat to our jetty since the perpetrators of the crime ran away.

“About 90 kegs had already been loaded with PMS leaving about 90% of the kegs empty. We are keying into the mandate of Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ette Ibas. He has zero tolerance for economic sabotage and he is working in line with the mandate of the President.

Ours is to implement those zero tolerance in his directives. We have been having regular patrol and for the past three months, since I resumed duty at this base, we have made several arrest and we decided to do this briefing in Badagry to sound a note of warning to every economic saboteur in Badagry that the Nigerian Navy is here for a serious business.

“Already, the navy is a terror to this environment because smuggling activities is right now at a standstill. We have arrested about 5-6 bigger wooden boats with about 11 suspects and handed them with the products over to my parent unit, NNS Beecroft for further investigation.

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Explaining more on the source of the products being smuggled, Captain Dogo said from their findings, the smugglers are not pipeline vandals but genuine petrol dealers who purchased the products genuinely from the depot with valid documents but instead of depositing it at the filling station for local consumption, they bring it to Badagry and wait till night before dispensing it into jerry cans for transfer to Republic of Benin, Ghana and Togo to maximise profit.

“Their motive is to make more money. They claimed to be business men, but as far as I am concerned, they are economic saboteur; because these products were met to be dispensed and used by inhabitants of Badagry and environs but they take it across thereby causing severe fuel scarcity within this environment.

“My message to them is that it is no longer business as usual because we are here to deal with them and the CNS has motivated us by giving us two Epenal boat as against two fibre boat we had before.

Asked if they are not pipeline vandals, Captain Dogo added, “Some of them are not pipeline vandals because they bring it officially with trucks and dispense it into jerry cans. Last night, my land patrol team saw a truck and they checked their papers and found them to be genuine and valid, we allowed them to go.”

He said they would continue to interrogate arrested suspects in order to get clues of who their sponsors are with a view to apprehending them. Unfortunately, these smugglers use proxies while the sponsors chose to remain at the background without seeing them or coming out,” Navy Captain Dogo added.