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Tag: cable vandals

  • Two suspected cable vandals held

    The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) yesterday paraded two suspected armoured cable vandals.

    Yemi Aina and Mayowa Adedoyin were arrested last Friday at Oshodi after stealing a cable worth over N500,000 belonging to Ikeja Electric Plc.

    According to Lagos State NSCDC Commandant Tajudeen Balogun, the suspects were arrested following a tip-off.

    Balogun said: “These two are part of a syndicate. We are working to get the others. They have succeeded in throwing a lot of communities into darkness by cutting this cable. It is a core cable and supplies many areas.

    “We believe that if there are no buyers, there will be no sellers and that is why we are working with various traders’ unions in the state to rout all those who patronise vandals.”

    Adedoyin said a man known as One Dollar introduced him to the act.

    He told reporters that Aina was not one of them, but was promised N15,000 to keep quiet about the incident.

    He said: “I am a bus conductor at Oshodi Underbridge. On Thursday evening, One Dollar asked if I would be at the joint in the night and I said yes. I saw him with his two saws around 9pm and asked him what he wanted to do with them. He said I should be patient.

    “Around 12am, he went to the joint. After some minutes, I traced him there and met him cutting the cable. He promised to give a man (Aina) who was awake while he was cutting it N15,000. He only said he would ‘take care’ of me.

    “He promised him that money because it was his area and he saw us cutting the cable. Aina accepted to keep quiet but said that no one should involve him should the police arrest us.”

    Aina, 32, insisted that he was being framed for reporting the vandals to the police.

    He said: “I am a commercial bus driver. I know nothing about the cable. I have once caught him (Adedoyin) and his gang members vandalising cables and handed them over to the police. I think that is why they want to implicate me in this one.”

  • NSCDC arrests two armoured cable ‘vandals’

    NSCDC arrests two armoured cable ‘vandals’

    Operatives of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Tuesday paraded two suspected armored cable vandals.

    Yemi Aina and Mayowa Adedoyin were arrested by the operatives around 4am on Friday at Oshodi after stealing a cable worth over N500, 000 belonging to Ikeja Electric Plc.

    According to the agency’s Commandant, Tajudeen Balogun, the suspects were picked up following a tip-off from some informants, adding that they were members of a syndicate.
    Balogun said the cable the suspects stole was very essential because a lot of communities were thrown into darkness by their action.

    “These two are part of a syndicate. We are working to get the others. They have succeeded in throwing a lot of communities into darkness by cutting this cable. It is a core cable and suppliers many areas.

    “We believe that if there are no buyers, they will be no sellers and that is why we are working with various traders’ unions in the state to rout all those who patronise vandals.”

    Adedoyin who admitted that he was among the gang that uprooted the cable, said a certain One Dollar introduced him to the act.

    He told reporters that Aina did not follow them to commit the crime but was promised N15,000 to keep quiet about it.

    He said: “I am a bus conductor at Oshodi Underbridge. On Thursday evening, One Dollar asked if I would be at the joint in the night and I said yes. I saw him with his two saws around 9pm and asked him what he wanted to do with them. He said I should be patient.

    “Around 12am, he went to the joint. After some minutes, I traced him there and met him cutting the cable. He promised to give a man (Aina) who was awake while he was cutting it N15, 000. He only said he would ‘take care’ of me.

    “He promised him that money because it was his area and he saw us cutting the cable. Aina accepted to keep quiet but said that no one should involve him should the police arrest us.”

    Aina, 32, denied taking any part in the vandalism, insisting that he was being framed for reporting the real vandals previously to the police.

    He said: “I am commercial bus driver. I know nothing about the cable. I have once caught him (Adedoyin) and his gang members for vandalising cables and handed them over to the police. I think that is why they want to implicate me in this one.”

  • Two cable vandals held

    Rapid Response Squad (RRS), operatives have arrested a man for allegedly vandalising cables on Oba Akra Avenue, Ikeja.

    He was nabbed on Wednesday, barely 24 hours after a cart pusher, Bayo Agboola,  was arrested in the same area over the same act.

    Agboola was caught around 3:30 a.m. with an armoured saw and two sets of pliers trying to cut a cable from an unlit lamp post.

    Agboola, 30, said to be an ex–convict, attempted to flee before he was overpowered by the patrolling RRS operatives.

    He allegedly told his interrogators that he was trying to cut off a disused cable when he was arrested, adding that he came out early to pick metal to escape being arrested.

    The second vandal, Abubakar Usman, 27, from Jigawa State, was arrested around Akran near where Agboola was caught.

    He was found with a hand-saw and two pieces of cut cables measuring up to two meters each.

    In a statement yesterday, RRS said the suspects have been handed over to the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit (Task Force).

  • RRS arrest suspected cable vandals

    RRS arrest suspected cable vandals

    Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) have arrested a six-man gang who allegedly specialise in vandalising Streetlight cables.

    Tunde Alaba, 29, Saheed Ismail, 27, Deji Afolorunso, 26, Sunday Obasanmi, 27, Jelili Oyedele, 32, and Taofeek Oyedele, 28, were arrested on Monday, at about2:30am under the bridge at CMS.

    They were said to have been sighted by a patrol team while they were pulling down street lamps, cables and poles.

    It was gathered that the officers who saw them, called for back-up before they were arrested and taken to Alausa.

    According to the police, the suspects confessed to the crime, attributing it to hardship.
    Oyedele who claimed he has lived under the bridge for four years, said that he used to be a bus conductor.

    He said: “I came to Lagos about seven years ago. When I arrived, I was a bus conductor which I did for about 2 years. I joined the other accomplices under the bridge when I had no other place to live after my landlord evicted me for non-payment of rent.

    “Before now, I was working as a labourer with the road construction company around Marina. But after our project ended, I chose to steal the cable to earn a living.”

    Alaba said he stole and sold cables to feed.

    He said: “I used to stay with a friend in Lagos Island but I ran from there because of the frequent clashes between cultists and area boys. I relocated under the bridge where I have been surviving through the sale of cables and iron steel.”

    Afolorunsho who claimed he used to be a janitor at Idumota Market where he earned N2, 500 daily, said greed led him to stealing cables.

    Contacted, the command’s spokesperson, Dolapo Badmos, a Superintendent of Police, (SP) confirmed the arrest, adding that they have been handed over to the Lagos State Environmental Task Force for prosecution.

     

  • NSCDC decries activities of cable vandals in Jigawa

    NSCDC decries activities of cable vandals in Jigawa

    The Jigawa Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Monday decried the spate of power transmission line vandalism in the state.

    This is contained in a statement issued by Malam Muhammad Gidado, the Commandant of the corps in the state, which was made available to newsmen in Dutse.

    The statement said that Gidado expressed his dismay at the spate of vandalised power-transmission cables and insulation plates along Sara in Gwaram Local Government Area of Jigawa.

    He however commended the the anti-vandal squad of the command for recovering the items, it said.

    It said that the recovery as a “wakeup call’’, adding that vandalism needed to be curtailed.

    The statement said that no arrest was made because the vandals ran away before the anti-vandal squad arrived there.

    “The corps is determined to put an end to the activities of vandals in the state which is on the increase.

    “But by the grace of God, we will arrest the perpetrators of the act,’’ he said in the statement.

    The statement said that the commandant directed officers of the command to be more vigilant and provide security to lives and property in the state.

    It quoted Gidado as saying that items recovered had been deposited at the Gwaram Divisional Office of the corps for safe keeping.

    The statement said that Gidado promised that the items would be handed over to the Power Transmission Company (PTC) in the area after it would have concluded its investigation.

  • Suspected cable vandals arrested

    Suspected cable vandals arrested

    Three suspected electricity transformer cable thieves were arrested by community volunteers in Era Town, in the Oto-Awori Local Council Development Area of Lagos State at the weekend.

    The suspended vandals were apprehended in the early hours of the day before they could carry out their nefarious act.

    The suspects who gave their names as Henry Reuben, Eze Obiesi and Chika Okpara, were with industrial spanners, pliers and a push-truck with which they planned to loosen and cart away the power connecting cables.

    When quizzed, the leader of the gang, Obiesi, confessed that they were the same gang that vandalised and carted away the cables that connected one of the community’s transformers to the power grid a week earlier.

    Leader of the watchmen group, Mr Amodu Saminu, expressed satisfaction that they had got to the bottom of the cable theft in the community, adding that some of the youths earlier accused had been exonerated.

    Reuben said the cables stolen from one of the transformers were sold off at N5, 000 per metre, fetching about N300,000 for cables worth almost 700,000 at N10,500 per metre.

    “I was shared N40, 000 from a total booty of N130, 000,” he said.

  •  Ikeja power warns cable vandals

    The Business Manager, Ikeja Business Unit of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), Mr. Lateef Olaleye, has warned those behind the incessant vandalism of electric cables and accessories in his network to desist or meet their waterloo.

    The Senior Manager, Public Affairs, of the Business Unit, Rotimi Afolayan, said Olaleye described the cable thieves and their sponsors as vermins who are not fit to live in any decent society, adding that the company would soon put in place sterner measures that would make it very difficult for the vandals to tamper with its installations.

    Olaleye, who was alarmed at the recurring rate of the vandalism of the company’s transformer distribution substations in the last few weeks, said that such acts were nothing but sabotage because no person in his right senses would want to risk his life by cutting and taking away live electrical materials that would at the end of the day earn them less than N50, 000 in the market.

    Olaleye, who spoke at an enlarged meeting of the management and staff of the Business Unit, including the service managers and their distribution and marketing managers, directed the undertakings’ staff to enlighten their customers to be more vigilant over electrical installations in their areas.

    He explained that the security of electricity facilities is not the duty of only the new owners of the power companies but everyone.

    He said within the last one month, three substations had been vandalised. “As I am speaking to you, I just received a call that our Emmanuel 500kVA substation at Maryland, an area that is very close to the Ikorodu express, has been vandalised,” he said warning that this wanton destruction of the company’s facilities just has to stop.