Soldiers caught stealing kerosine from vandalised pipeline in Niger delta

Soldiers were on wednesday caught by men of the National Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project [HYPREP] siphoning product suspected to be kerosine from an underground pipeline in Eleme government area of Rivers State.
A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who was on the HYPREP entourage, reports that a strange drama ensued at Sisioke community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State where the
team saw some military personnel siphoning kerosene from an underground pipeline into drums.
The men, led by one soldier bearing the name tag Sgt. S Haladu, were unperturbed when questioned by newsmen and the HYPREP team but said that they were “guarding the pipeline’’.
The HYPREP boss who was visibly disturbed by the strange occurrence, made frantic calls to some senior military personnel and PPMC officials with a view to stopping them.
However, a Joint Task Force (JTF) patrol van without a number plate, later arrived at the scene with armed military men, condoned off the area and threatened to deal with the HYPREP officials.
The HYPREP boss Joy Nunieh Okunnu described the incident as a great sabotage to the nation’s oil industry and promised to take up the issue with the relevant authorities.
Nnieh-Okunnu said the clean-up of Ogoniland would be rendered useless if saboteurs kept rupturing the pipelines.
Cases of crude oil theft and vandalism has been on the rise in the area.

The National Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), said on Wednesday that pipeline vandalism was contributing largely to oil spills and pollution in the Niger Delta region.
The Coordinator of HYPREP, Mrs Joy Nnieh-Okunnu, made the statement in Eleme, Rivers, during an impact assessment tour of oil spill sites in Ogoniland.
Nnieh-Okunnu condemned the activities of vandals, adding that their activities were hurting the nation’s economy.