By Chinonso Alozie, Owerri

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence, NSCDC, yesterday said that it has intercepted and arrested four persons alongside with 40,000 liters of truck linked to diversion and smuggling of adulterated oil product enroute from Okigwe to Enugu state.

The Imo NSCDC commandant, Mr. Micheal Ogar, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri, while commenting on the security situation in Imo.

He said that the arrests were made possible through the intelligence gathering of the NSCDC command on the activities of bunkers in and around the state.

Ogar as captured by Vanguard said: “It’s barely three weeks, I took over. Just like you asked me what we are doing in protecting the oil facilities in the state, we have sent more men to oil areas to protect oil facilities. This is to tell you that our officers cannot collaborate with anybody in oil bunkering.

“So far, we have arrested a truck with 40,000 liters of adulterated oil product. They were intercepted on their way from Okigwe to Umuahia heading to Enugu state. We discovered that they have a falsified document. While they were heading to Enugu to sell the product.

“Their document written said they loaded from Portharcout to Kano state. We also discovered that actually they loaded the product from Aba. Our investigation is still ongoing to get further details. We arrested four of them including the driver.”

When asked by Vanguard to give statistics of how many of their men that was killed within this period of “unknown gunmen ” attacks in the state, he said: “We have lost three of our men one is a female and the others male. Also we have met and still communicating with the bereaved families and promised to assist them financially.”

He further said on the coloboration with the sister security agencies to tackle the insecurity in the state, he said: We have mobilsed more men on intelligence gathering. We are working with other sister agencies to expose the perpetrators of these attacks.”

“Also, we are going to involve our officers in training and retraining of the personnels of NSCDC, as well as enhancing the intelligence gathering of all our officers in this command. The major problem we have now is with the members of the public they should give us information. We want Imo people to give us information to stop oil bunkering and other security challenges,” NSCDC commandant said.

40,000 liters of adulterated petrol product confiscated by NSCDC in Imo. Photo by Chinonso Alozie