By John Ighodaro
CALABAR—Two men suspected to be siphoning Premium Motor Spirit from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mega Station in Calabar, have been arrested by men of the Nigerian Navy.

The men,who are in their early 30s were caught weekend in Calabar, allegedly trying to siphon over 40, 000 litres of PMS.

Confirming the arrest, the Commanding Officer of NNS Victory, Commodore Jeremiah Jatau, told newsmen that they got wind of the attempt by the suspects to siphon the PMS following  intelligence report and his men then swooped on the suspects. He said, “we followed it up and midnight, we intercepted them and made the arrest.

They had already rigged up their pipes and I believe they had information that we were coming. So they immediately fled on sighting our patrol boat. “But we were able to grab two. We did not allow them to begin siphoning. We did not only avert the siphoning in the first place, we averted the hazard that may have followed it.”

He assured that the suspects would soon be handed over to the police.

Stating his own story, one of the suspects,  Udoeffiong said, “we use to do our petty sand business. So on Saturday, when we went to the beach, we could not see our sand boat. We waited till 4pm, then we saw some people coming to the beach.

We heard that Chairman’s boys had taken our sand boat to a trip where they were doing their business. So we waited. Around 6pm,  we saw some people and they said they had an encounter with the naval people.

Since it is our boat, we paid a fisherman who paddled us to the creeks where the thing was happening. So when we got to the entrance of the creek,  the fisherman heard that naval people were causing trouble, so he left us there and went away.

Since the water was tight,  my friend and I decided to walk into the creeks to get our boats.”

“When we got into the creeks, I met one of chairman’s boys Ikpon Eyen. I started a fight with him, asking him where my boat was, since I heard it was his people that carried it. He said when the incident happened, some boys from Creek Town fled with our boats to Creek Town.

“After that, since there was no means of going back, I decided to carry their hand paddling boat. There was a siphoning hose inside. I wanted to remove it and throw away, but my friend said no, in case we get to the beach and don’t see our boat, we can use it to make a case for our boat.

I agreed. We were going innocently till we met the naval people and that is when we were caught. I am innocent. Till today, we can’t see chairman, who is responsible for this. Chairman is the one who does this business. Everyone knows that,” he added.