By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HAR-COURT— CHIEF of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Buratai, has said that there will be no hiding place for illegal bunkerers in the Niger Delta region.

Speaking, yesterday, at Wellington Barracks, Abak Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State, Buratai said that with the establishment of the new 6 Division of the Army in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, there will no longer be any hiding place for illegal bunkering activities in the region.

He appealed for the concerted effort of stakeholders in the region to end the menace.

Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai

He described the steps so far taken by the Rivers State Government to end the soot arising from illegal refining activities as appreciable.

“This is a challenge that everybody should be concerned about, what you refer to  as illegal refineries. Security agencies are working to end it. You see many efforts among security agencies to stop this illegal bunkering.

“There is the new 6 Division that has been established touching everywhere. There are heightened activities to stop the oil theft.  The Rivers State Government has taken appropriate steps on the black soot,”  he said.

Buratai,  who was at the 2 Brigade to commission a newly refurbished security village for officers of the Brigade at Uruah Local Government, by the Brigade Commander, Brigadier General Hassan Hamisu, said the Army had taken steps to tackle challenges of infrastructure in its barracks all over the country.

Also commissioned was the new headquarters of the brigade on Udo Udoma Avenue and the Brigade Officers’ mess.