electricity supply from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Reason: suspected vandals of their PHCN cables have been arrested
A Kirikiri prisons returnee, a gospel artiste and sales girl were
among the 12 cable thieves recently apprehended by men of the NNS
Beecroft of the Nigerian Navy in an overnight raid on their hideout at
Railway Line, Marine Bridge at Ijora, in Lagos State.
Apart from the Naval Base in the area, the entire Apapa axis is a
highly commercial and industrial layout with an equally large demand
for electricity.
Unfortunately, in spite of the increased generation of electricity as
claimed by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria lately, power has been
a major concern for the axis. On many occasions, these establishments
had had their heavy machineries damaged on account of indiscriminate
power surges that the area is notorious for.
The naval establishment, however, could not take kindly to these
indiscriminate power surges considering the reliance of their
machineries used to power and/or repair their ships on electricity. It
got to a head that the naval authorities approached the Apapa PHCN to
register their displeasure of the development.
The naval officials were shell shocked when the PHCN denied the surges
coming from their end. They had raised the alarm that there might be
some fifth columnists in the naval neighbourhood causing the damage to
their machineries. This then propelled the naval authorities to
commenced intense surveillance of their entire stretch of Apapa.
Their surveillance soon paid off though. Only last week, a group of 12
(11 males, 1 female) cable vandals were apprehended while attempting
to dig up PHCN cables that supply electricity to the area.
Among the vandals was a recently released inmate from the Kirikiri
prisons in Lagos. Found in their possession were about 36 wraps of
marijuana, cutlasses and axes of varying shapes and sizes, diggers,
welding machines and 24 mobile phones.
The ex-prison inmate, Jide Ajayi, 32, was reportedly freed from the
medium section of the Kirikiri prison only last December. Though he
confessed to have joined the gang because he had nowhere to go after
he left prisons, he, however, said his action was driven by hunger and
lack of shelter rather than wholesome attempt at economic sabotage.
"I returned from Kirikiri last December.
I was caught trying to use a NEPA pole to balance a section of the
makeshift house I live now after my return from prisons. I am not
happy that I want to do this work to eat but condition made me do it,"
Ajayi told reporters while the 12 vandals were being handed over to
Lagos Police Command task Force led by one Superintendent Ajani Lateef
at the NNS Beecfort in Apapa.
Another vandal, a self-acclaimed gospel artiste, David Temitayo
Adebanjo, maintained that he only came to the railway line hideout to
have his bath when the naval personnel swooped on them. Adebanjo, 30,
and a native of Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State, maintained that he was
innocent of the vandalism change proffered against him.
A 2003 school certificate holder, Adebanjo claimed his father retired
from the Nigerian Railways Corporation which made him have access to
the NRC facilities anywhere in the state. "I was arrested as a result
of what they say that some boys went to cut cable wires. They dumped
these cutlasses in front of us and I did not use them.
My father once worked in NRC before he retired. I was taking my bath
that day before God and man. It was a place my father worked before.
There are no houses where people live there. I have never been caught
in crime before in my whole life," Adebanjo said.
Adebanjo, however, admitted that he used to come see his friends in
the hideout where the equipment and several wraps of marijuana were
seized. The only female among the vandals, Ruth Lucky from Umunede,
Delta State, confessed to being the one that purchased the marijuana
for the male vandals before they go for 'operation'.
Lucky, 19, maintained that she was not part of those that cut PHCN
cables as alleged by the naval authorities.
"I smoke Igbo (marijuana) truly. I was in the place where we were
arrested because I came to buy Igbo that I would smoke before the
naval officers came to arrest us," Lucky said tearfully claiming that
her inability to smoke marijuana in the last 24 hours was really
telling on her body.
Some other members of the group however, punctured the claims by the
three suspects saying they were caught in the act.
Addressing reporters at the handover of the vandals to law enforcement
agents, Commander NNS Beecroft, Navy Commodore Chris Odogwu Ezekobe,
lamented the activities of the vandals which he claimed had affected
some of their operations in the past.
"It was after the PHCN officials confirmed to us that the surge in
electricity that we always witnessed was not their making that we
intensified our surveillance we depend on power for the day to day
running of our machineries here. We cannot rely on diesel to run these
machineries.
We then put machinery in motion to get to the root of the matter,
before we traced the surge to vandalized cables around the rail line
close by," Commodore Ezekobe said.
Segun Kosoko, Senior Manager, Public Relations Affairs, PHCN, Apapa,
lauded the navy's initiative to hunt perpetrators of the heinous
crime.
"Vandalism affects every facet of Nigeria's life. When the naval
authorities came to complain to us, we urged them to be on the lookout
for vandals who probably were vandalising the cables supplying the
power.
We have had cases of some of them being electrocuted, and because of
the power outages that we all experience as Nigerians these people
used that to perpetrate their crimes.
Sometimes they cause trouble to cause power surge so that they could
have a field day in carrying out their crime," Kosoko said.
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