NNPC staff, wife nabbed in pipeline rupture
By JULIANA FRANCIS
Saturday, August 11, 2007


•The pipeline vandals at their ‘workshop’ digging and siphoning (up) and proceeds of the illicit act surfacing in jerry cans (below) from where they fill tankers for delivery to the maket.
PHOTO: OYIN BADA-ONIME
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Barely 24 hours after the Federal Government relieved the Group Managing Director, Nigeria National Petro-leum Corporation(NNPC), Mr Funsho Kupolokun of his job, a six-man suspected pipeline vandals led by an officer of the corporation, Mathew Ibikunle who gave him some sleepless nights while in office was arrested Friday.

The suspects, including a woman, was said to have been nabbed while attempting to syphone fuel after vandalising a pipeline at the Ejigbo pipeline road area of Lagos yesterday morning at about 2am. A police source alleged that the leader of the gang was one Mathew Ibikunle, who is an engineer with NNPC.

Recovered from them were five trailer tankers, a pumping machine and a valve already fixed to a pit they had dung.
The suspects were nabbed by a team of five policemen, led by the officer in charge (OC) of pipeline vandalization, Mr. Ibadin. while some of the vandals escaped, six were, however, appreneded, but Ibikunle was not one of those arrested.

The police discovered that an MTN kiosk was planted as a camouflage to screen off the hole already drilled by the vandals to carry out their criminal act. A source said: "Look at this hole, once they arrive, they would carry off the kiosk, fix their pipe, attach it to a tanker and fuel would start pumping. When they are through, they would drop a sack of sand inside, and cover it back. They would place back the kiosk, making it appear like an ordinary kiosk!"

The only female in the midst of the men identified herself as Ebun Ibikunle, wife of the gang leader now at large. She told Saturday Sun that she was arrested at her home, along the axis where the vandals used to operate. she denied knowing her husband was involved in the nefarious activity according to her, her husband is a labourer, who works for NNPC.

Asked the whereabouts of her husband, Ebun said he lives in another building, while she lives in the other assigned to her by her husband. She was, however, mum when asked if it was through the labourer job that Ibikunle built his two magnificent houses.

Meanwhile, residents of the area, have embarked on a celebration galore, expressing joy that a potential pipleline explosion had been averted. They prayed the government to do something about other vandals, because, "our lives are not safe and we don't have anywhere else to go. There is nobody who does not know how expensive it is to get accommodation. If these vandals could be stopped, we would sleep easy," they enjoined.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2007/aug/11/national-11-08-2007-003.htm