Men of the Forward Operating Base, FOB, Igbokoda of the Nigerian Navy have destroyed four illegal Refineries with about 135 litters of Crude oil worth over 20 million naira in Awoye community in Igbokoda of the state.
The Commander, Forward Operating Base, FOB, Igbokoda, Navy Captain Wasuku Alushi said this while briefing Journalists on efforts of the base at stamping out criminal activities in the riverine communities of the state
“You would recall that two weeks ago, Nigeria Navy forward operating base in Igbokoda under the directive of the Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command launched a special operation here and the essence is for us to extend our tentacles to be able to checkmate some of the criminal activities in the riverine environment especially kidnapping, crude oil theft, and illegal bunkering.”
“In the course of that operation, we got aerial intelligence reports of these illegal refinery sites, and since then we have been planning judiciously.
“The terrain was a very difficult one, it is a whole network of criminal enterprise, as you can see, there are stolen crude, this engineering method was carefully carried out by these criminal elements.”
“What we are doing is in furtherance to the dictate of the chief of Naval staff, which is to stamp out illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft as well as other criminal acts from the riverine communities.”
According to him; the strategy is in three folds. The first is to arrest the criminal elements at the point of stealing the crude, if we cannot get them there then we can get their illegal refinery sites, good enough, we caught them at the point of refining.
“We have deactivated those illegal refineries, the next step is to crush the relics, which would discourage them even when they have the thought of reactivating those refineries, we would follow up with information and destroy them all.
“Our traditional rulers have been forthcoming, they have been trying in the area of giving us intelligence, we would like them to help us in the area of community agreement, they must continually sensitize their wards on the menace of crude oil theft, not to the economy alone but the effects to the environment.
“Beyond that, as soon as they are arrested, they would be made to face the full wrath of the law and as a security agency, Nigeria Navy would not relent in its efforts, we would go full length out to ensure that we stamp out completely this criminal enterprise, especially in their Ondo area of operations.
“Here at the illegal refineries, they have numerous types of equipment, they have boats which they use in conveying the crude oil and as you can see, the crude oil is still very fresh, it can contain about 2,000 liters as we deactivate them all”, he stated.
It was also said that the operation was in furtherance of the mandate of operations Delta Sanity which was launched by the Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogala about 2 months ago
Alushi noted that the operation was a follow-up on the series of Helicopter operations conducted in the past which provide valuable information on the hideouts and activities of the criminal elements.