NSCDC denies arresting IPMAN member, parades oil thieves

Operatives of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Rivers State Command on Marine and Land Patrol, have arrested three suspects with a wooden boat and two vehicles laden with illegally refined petroleum products.

Parading the suspects at the Ogbogoro Exhibit Jetty in the state at the weekend, the state Commandant, Michael Ogar, said the command impounded a large wooden boat laden with about 24,000 litres of illegally refined petroleum products- Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK).

Ogar disclosed that the suspects loaded the illegally refined products in cellophane and concealed them in sack bags.

He said: “The products were carefully arranged in the wooden boat such that a layman would assume it as a passenger boat, but based on intelligence, the suspects: William Chen (29), male, and Emmanuel Uriah (27), male, were arrested.

Ogar, reacting to a publication on September 5, 2022, which accused the agency of arresting an oil marketer for exposing extortion by its officers, described the report as misleading.

He said: “It is imperative to point out that the report about the purported arrest circulating in the media space was not only misleading but a grandiose attempt to denigrate the service and the positive impact it is making in society.”