Residents of Naval Base, Apapa and its environs can now enjoy better electricity supply from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). Reason: suspected vandals of their PHCN cables have been arrested
A Kirikiri prisons returnee, a gospel artiste and sales girl were among the 12 cable thieves recently apprehended by men of the NNS Beecroft of the Nigerian Navy in an overnight raid on their hideout at Railway Line, Marine Bridge at Ijora, in Lagos State.
Apart from the Naval Base in the area, the entire Apapa axis is a highly commercial and industrial layout with an equally large demand for electricity.
Unfortunately, in spite of the increased generation of electricity as claimed by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria lately, power has been a major concern for the axis. On many occasions, these establishments had had their heavy machineries damaged on account of indiscriminate power surges that the area is notorious for.
The naval establishment, however, could not take kindly to these indiscriminate power surges considering the reliance of their machineries used to power and/or repair their ships on electricity. It got to a head that the naval authorities approached the Apapa PHCN to register their displeasure of the development.
The naval officials were shell shocked when the PHCN denied the surges coming from their end. They had raised the alarm that there might be some fifth columnists in the naval neighbourhood causing the damage to their machineries. This then propelled the naval authorities to commenced intense surveillance of their entire stretch of Apapa.
Their surveillance soon paid off though. Only last week, a group of 12 (11 males, 1 female) cable vandals were apprehended while attempting to dig up PHCN cables that supply electricity to the area.
Among the vandals was a recently released inmate from the Kirikiri prisons in Lagos. Found in their possession were about 36 wraps of marijuana, cutlasses and axes of varying shapes and sizes, diggers, welding machines and 24 mobile phones.
The ex-prison inmate, Jide Ajayi, 32, was reportedly freed from the medium section of the Kirikiri prison only last December. Though he confessed to have joined the gang because he had nowhere to go after he left prisons, he, however, said his action was driven by hunger and lack of shelter rather than wholesome attempt at economic sabotage.
“I returned from Kirikiri last December.
I was caught trying to use a NEPA pole to balance a section of the makeshift house I live now after my return from prisons. I am not happy that I want to do this work to eat but condition made me do it,” Ajayi told reporters while the 12 vandals were being handed over to Lagos Police Command task Force led by one Superintendent Ajani Lateef at the NNS Beecfort in Apapa.
Another vandal, a self-acclaimed gospel artiste, David Temitayo Adebanjo, maintained that he only came to the railway line hideout to have his bath when the naval personnel swooped on them. Adebanjo, 30, and a native of Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State, maintained that he was innocent of the vandalism change proffered against him.
A 2003 school certificate holder, Adebanjo claimed his father retired from the Nigerian Railways Corporation which made him have access to the NRC facilities anywhere in the state. “I was arrested as a result of what they say that some boys went to cut cable wires. They dumped these cutlasses in front of us and I did not use them.
My father once worked in NRC before he retired. I was taking my bath that day before God and man. It was a place my father worked before. There are no houses where people live there. I have never been caught in crime before in my whole life,” Adebanjo said.
Adebanjo, however, admitted that he used to come see his friends in the hideout where the equipment and several wraps of marijuana were seized. The only female among the vandals, Ruth Lucky from Umunede, Delta State, confessed to being the one that purchased the marijuana for the male vandals before they go for ‘operation’.
Lucky, 19, maintained that she was not part of those that cut PHCN cables as alleged by the naval authorities.
“I smoke Igbo (marijuana) truly. I was in the place where we were arrested because I came to buy Igbo that I would smoke before the naval officers came to arrest us,” Lucky said tearfully claiming that her inability to smoke marijuana in the last 24 hours was really telling on her body.
Some other members of the group however, punctured the claims by the three suspects saying they were caught in the act.
Addressing reporters at the handover of the vandals to law enforcement agents, Commander NNS Beecroft, Navy Commodore Chris Odogwu Ezekobe, lamented the activities of the vandals which he claimed had affected some of their operations in the past.
“It was after the PHCN officials confirmed to us that the surge in electricity that we always witnessed was not their making that we intensified our surveillance we depend on power for the day to day running of our machineries here. We cannot rely on diesel to run these machineries.
We then put machinery in motion to get to the root of the matter, before we traced the surge to vandalized cables around the rail line close by,” Commodore Ezekobe said.
Segun Kosoko, Senior Manager, Public Relations Affairs, PHCN, Apapa, lauded the navy’s initiative to hunt perpetrators of the heinous crime.
“Vandalism affects every facet of Nigeria’s life. When the naval authorities came to complain to us, we urged them to be on the lookout for vandals who probably were vandalising the cables supplying the power.
We have had cases of some of them being electrocuted, and because of the power outages that we all experience as Nigerians these people used that to perpetrate their crimes. Sometimes they cause trouble to cause power surge so that they could have a field day in carrying out their crime,” Kosoko said.