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By Tunde Oso

A group within the Petroleum Tanker Drivers Association, PTDA/Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG Port Harcourt Zone, Rivers State broke ranks this morning and set on fire anti – pipeline vandal checkpoints of men of the Association of Nigeria Refineries and Petroleum Marketers, (ANRPM), along Sapele – Benin Expressway, alleging that the checks were disrupting the thoroughfare of tankers drivers. They claimed that its only policemen and army personnel that were the authorised agencies to check illicit trade among oil marketers.

Our correspondent gathered that an individual (names withheld), who claims to be first deputy national chairman PTDA/NUPENG Port Harcourt Zone, ordered the action as he boasted never to allow non conventional security agency on the highway under any guise to mount roadblocks on the highway.

Reacting to the attack, the National Taskforce Chairman of the ANRPM, Eshanekpe Israel, a.k.a Akpodoro urged security agencies to avert the looming bloody confrontation that may ensue between his group and this section of the PTDA, saying ANRPM was duly registered and is out to carry out its mandate without fear or favour, adding that no individual has the right to obstruct the operations of a legal body such as ANRPM.

He alleged that the group is jittery and afraid of the ANRPM since his personnel refused to be bribed by anyone especially some of the tanker drivers, who he described as the purveyors of stolen petroleum products.

Akpodoro noted that ANRPM is a thorn in the flesh of these unscrupulous members of PTDA and shall remain so if Nigeria must stop the activities of oil petroleum products thieves.

“The downstream oil industry is under the mercy of the thieves among products marketers who enable criminalities in the sector including oil theft, illegal bunkering, products adulteration, vandalism of oil and gas facilities.

“Some tanker drivers are the major culprits in the business of wheeling and dealing in stolen petroleum products in the country. This particular individual leads a brigade of crooks, whose activities are being seriously checkmated by our men in a no-hold-barred manner. They are more comfortable with a handful of security agencies, who promote their trade-in criminalities and sundry crimes in the marketing chain of petroleum products.

Therefore, we call on security agencies to hunt down the particular individual (names withheld) and his thugs to forestall bloody confrontation with dare consequences.

We call on the IGP, NSA, Nigerian Army to go after Osesua and companies that are bent on sabotaging the national economy. They must be hounded and brought to justice,” the task force chairman stated.

However, a PTDA official, who allegedly led the armed thugs on the road stated in a telephone interview that he had the mandate of the IGP and Commissioner of Police to carry out the alleged arson at the checkpoints. He boasted of wielding the powers to kill and he would stop at nothing to ensure that no unconventional body checks the activities of marketers.

“We have the order from the IGP and Commissioners of Police to carry out our operations and that was what we did and we shall sustain the tempo. We are comfortable with conventional security agencies but not any other body,” he insisted.