The operatives of the Nigerian Navy Base, NNS Beecroft, Apapa, Lagos, have arrested five suspected illegal oil dealers in Majidon area of Ikorodu.
The Commander, Christy Ezekoba, who paraded the suspects before journalists last Friday, said that the suspects, four men and a lady were allegedly arrested with 126 gallons of premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol, based on intelligence gathering.
“We got from a reliable source that the vandals were at work again, so we deployed our personnel from our outpost in Atlas Cove to arrest the vandals.Though some of them were violent, throwing stones, but the officers shot in the air and they dispersed, so they were able to arrest five of them,” he said.
Ezekoba, who decried the increasing rate of oil bunkering and other illegalities in the Ikorodu axis, said that the Navy has been synergising with other security agencies to raid and create an outpost in the area to reduce the menace of oil bunkering.
He said that one of the key agenda of the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Dele Joseph Ezeoba, is to achieve zero-tolerance for all forms of illegalities, including piracy on the nation’s water ways.
The suspects, according to him, will be handed over to the appropriate security agency after preliminary investigation is concluded.
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