About one month after two soldiers and a mobile policeman attached to the Joint Task Force, ‘Operation Pulo (Oil) Shield” and their boat driver went missing in the creeks of the Niger Delta their whereabouts remain unknown. Their fate has become a subject of hush discussions in the barracks and military formations.
The team was on a mission that is as mysterious as their whereabouts when they went missing between Warri South West and Burutu local government areas of Delta State. Their family members are anxious for news about them and the leadership of the Joint Task Force is yet to provide any plausible explanation as to what happened to them.
Initial reports said they were killed by suspected illegal bunkering gangs. It was gathered that the criminals either shot and killed the military men or overran and sank their boat.
The Commander of Sector 1 of the task force, Lt.-Col Bassey, who was contacted by our reporter, refused to divulge the details of the investigation into the incident. He said the military authority have merely declared the troops “missing”. That was shortly after The Nation exclusively reported the incident.
In spite of the commander’s claim, there are strong signals that the JTF may have given up the hope of finding the soldiers. It was learnt that the task force could not confirm their deaths because their remains have not been recovered. It was gathered that that much was contained in the report of an investigation presented by Lt Col Bassey to the military hierarchy on the incident.
A source at the Effurun Barracks base of the Sector I of the task force said : “We have concluded that the soldiers are died; what is only confusing is the circumstance of their death. What we are interested in are their bodies and how to retrieve their arms and ammunition.
We want to find those (bodies and arms) and close the case,” the source told our reporter on condition of anonymity at the initial stage of the investigation.
Since then, a massive search and manhunt launched by the soldiers’ colleagues have failed to yield fruits. Initial report that the remains of the soldiers were retrieved and deposited at the morgue of a government hospital in Warri was deflated by the military. Also, a report of the discovery of two bodies matching the description of two of the missing military men in a riverside community in the area could not be independently confirmed.
A high ranking officer at the JTF Sector I also said the case was even more puzzling because “Those of us from the riverside areas know that the corpse of someone who drowns needs just about 24 hours to come to the surface of the water. It is been more than that now and we are yet to have any sign of their remains; something must be wrong somewhere.”
The deployment of troops and detectives to the area to find the soldiers dead or alive, like other efforts, was futile. Instead, it led to mass exodus of panicky residents, particularly able-bodied men and women from the area because of fear of reprisal attacks by the military.
Some of those who fled the area in search of safe haven in Warri and other towns in the wake of the search expressed perplexity over what transpired between the military and the suspected illegal bunkerers, particularly because of alleged cozy relationship between both sides in the illegal business of crude of theft in the area.
Some of those who spoke with our reporter said the illicit oil deals were done by gangs led mostly by former militants with active supports of men of the JTF and the Nigerian Navy. “Anybody who knows the waterways, creeks and the strategic location of military posts will tell you that no vessel, even a speedboat, can pass into the open sea without soldiers seeing and searching them.
“The soldiers and the boys doing these business are friends; they meet regularly drink together and share ideas and money. So, whenever there is any arrest or incidents like this it is only because something has gone wrong.”
An Ijaw leader and traditional ruler in a Warri kingdom disclosed that he was forced to write a petition to Brigade Commander of the Nigerian Army in Benin City, when every effort made to get the JTF to destroy some illegal bunkering sites failed to elicit any action. “Instead of tackling the criminals as I demanded, the JTF men were advising me to be careful of getting involved because those behind the crime are very powerful. I saw a deliberate plot to force me into silence and allow business as usual to continue.”
Our source said the petition to the military high command in Benin brought about some action and the closure of the bunkering site, but said, “I know that they merely moved from that place to a more welcoming area.”
Independent investigations revealed that pipeline vandalism and theft of crude oil have gradually increased in the Forcados and Warri area of Delta State and locations around the Bayelsa axis of the Ramos River in recent times.
An independent anti-bunkering group, Heroes of Peace Initiative, in a confidential letter to the Commanding Officer of the 3 Battalion, Effurun , in September 2014, noted that illegal bunkering activities had spiked up in the area. The letter, which was obtained by our reporter, detailed how the operation was being carried with list of the operators’ assets, location and modus operandi.
It noted: “These bunkerers are currently using three to four flat bottom vessels to convey petroleum products monthly; that is one flat bottom vessel a week and they also have about 17 to 20 Cotonou boats, (with) which they load on a daily basis, especially night hours and conveying these products from one place to another freely, despite the watching eyes of the Nigerian Army, the Navy and the JTF present at the waters.”
The group offered to provide pictorial evidences on the activities of the illegal bunkerers, should the JTF require their assistance to bring the perpetrators to book, adding, “You may as well send us your email address so that we would forward same to you.”
Heroes of Faith Coordinator, Chief Futek Zikoregha told our reporter that the open offer was neither accepted by the task force nor was action taken to clamp down on the hotspot areas listed to include around Abrabebe Community and points on the Forcados Trunkline, Agip pipeline in Beniboye and Forcados Export line.
Meanwhile, the insinuation that the fate of the missing soldiers was connected to the illegal oil deal was further fueled by the unwillingness of the relevant military authority to open up on the mission and circumstance under which the troops went missing in the volatile scene. There was also rumour but in the communities and the JTF that the occupants of the ill-fated boat were on illegal assignment when they disappeared.
A local, who spoke on strict condition of anonymity, said, “Those who said the soldiers were on official duty should answer the question of why they used a private boat and a local driver, who is not on the payroll of the JTF. Do the JTF use local boat for ‘routine patrol’ instead of their gunboats?”
Another very reliable source and informant for the military authority in the area told our reporter that prior to the incident there were altercations between the military men and the illegal bunkering ring leaders over the sharing of loots.
It was gathered that trouble first started when the criminals allegedly paid some soldiers for access to an illegal bunkering point in the area. “The way the deal done is that the operators give the JTF men money for a specific time or quantity of product to be loaded. During that time the JTF would not patrol the area where the loading is taking place but after the expiration of that time, the soldiers would resume their normal patrol.
“The soldiers after collecting their share gave the boys the agreed hours to load the vessel that was brought into the creek. Unfortunately for them, the vessel did not complete loading before the time ran out. When the guys went to the soldiers, they said that they had already used up their time and if they wanted more time, they should pay additional money. “
It was learnt that when the aggrieved party defied the order and went ahead with the loading, the crewmembers were arrested and taken to a military base where the man who brought the vessel was asked to pay a certain sum of money or risk having the boat’s crewmembers paraded before camera and newsmen. It was against this back ground of tension between the illegal partners that the soldiers went missing.
Chief Zikoregha, who is the founder of the Heroes of Peace (Hope) Initiative and former Chairman of Forcados Community, said the allegations were not misplaced, adding that it was impossible for illegal rogue vessels to load their cargoes of stolen crude if JTF are not involved.
“One of the ringleaders is a ‘repentant’ former militant leader, who patrols the area with mobile policemen and personal security details given to him by the Federal Government. Policemen who should be used to secure society are under the command of persons who use them for intimidation, harassment and illegal bunkering,” he said.
Asked on the fate of the missing soldier, Zikorogha said “half the story has not been told,” and urged our reporter to dig deeper to ascertain why the two sides that had enjoyed cordial relationship suddenly fell apart enough to the point that soldiers were attacked and probably killed.
Several attempts to get a formal interview with the JTF leadership proved abortive. The Coordinator of the task force’s Media Centre, Lt Col Ado Isa declined our request for comment on the incident. The military spokesperson who was recently posted to the task force, said the Commander of the JTF, Major General Emmanuel Atewe, had adequately addressed the issue during a press brief. But our finding revealed that the top army officer only spoke generally on soldiers who were killed in another incident in Bayelsa State.
