Ex-militants arrest suspected vandals in Ondo

 

Some former militants in Ondo State have arrested a gang of criminals suspected to be indulging in illegal bunkering and pipeline vandalism in the oil-rich coastal stretch of the state.

The leader of the ex-Ilaje militant youths, Mr. Othello Mafimisebi, said in Akure that the arrest was carried out through a security outfit comprising himself and other ex-militants..

He said the arrested suspects, were “notorious throughout the 80-kilometre long Ondo coastline for stealing outboard engines and fishing boats to carry out nefarious activities” on oil facilities.

He said, “They were picked up by the Ilaje local council arm of the waterways vigilante group, Humanness Security Services, after several days of surveillance.”

Mafimisebi, whose area of coverage, according to a government arrangement, stretches to Ogun and Lagos coasts, added that the suspects were tracked down at Abereke, a town on the Atlantic shore while trying to hide a stolen Yamaha outboard engine.

He also said that the suspects were in custody of the Akure headquarters of the Ondo State Police Command.

Mafimisebi said the outfit “was resolute in assisting the Federal Government to bring sanity to the lawlessness in the creeks so that the country could have maximum returns from its natural resources in the Niger Delta.”

The Public Relations Officer of the state Police Command, Mr. Wole Ogodo, confirmed the arrest.

He said the gang would soon be taken to court and that detectives were already working to determine the extent of their involvement.

 It will be recalled that their counterparts in the neigbouring Ijaw-speaking Ese-Odo local council, headed by Bibopiri Ajube, last month, seized five barges of about 1.5 million litres of stolen unrefined crude and several boats and outboard engines suspected to have been forcibly taken from fishermen.

The Ajube outfit was later assisted by a combined team of soldiers, naval officers and marine policemen in a Joint Task Force operation, to set ablaze, 33 illegal refineries that dotted the creeks in the mutual boundaries of Ondo, Edo and Delta states.