Electricity vandals will be charged with economic sabotage — Wike

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has vowed to teach a valuable lesson to vandals who plunged more than half of the FCT into darkness after damaging and stealing transmission cables last week.

He revealed that some suspects connected to the crime have been arrested and are in custody.

At a media chat on Sunday evening, Wike vowed to charge these individuals with economic sabotage, adding that they would be punished severely for their crime.

He said, “They vandalised, stole the cables, causing over 60 per cent of Abuja to be dark. Sabotage! By the grace of God, the security agencies are on top of the matter. We’ve arrested some of them, and I can tell you: all of those involved will never come out of it, and people will learn lessons from it.

“We won’t charge you with stealing; we will charge you with economic sabotage. Enough is enough. Nobody will take this. Nobody who loves his country will accept what is going on.”

Wike made this known a few days after the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announced that its 132kV transmission line and underground cables had been vandalised.

The company listed the areas facing power outages as a result of the crime, including Wuse, Utako, Jabi, Maitama, Lifecamp, Asokoro, Mabushi, and parts of the Presidential Villa.