By Noah Ocheni, Lokoja
There has been an uneasy calm at the Kogi State command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps( NSCDC) as about five suspects allegedly escaped from their custody.
According to an insider source, five suspects namely , Hassan Sani, Auwal Mohamed, Mohamed Mustapha , Mudashiru Abubakar and Ibrahim Rabiu were arrested by the anti vandals unit of the corps for bunkering and pipeline vandalisation along Abuja- Lokoja highway last Thursday.
They were said to have successfully carried out the bunkering business in the Niger Delta region and were ferrying the products to the north in two big trucks when they were accosted by the anti vandals unit.
According to our correspondent, they were said to have confessed that the products which consist of petrol, diesel and kerosene were illegally scooped in a forest from a pipeline in one of the oil rich states .
It was gathered that the suspect’s were detained for further investigations at their state command office situated by the state secretariat, Lokoja before they, however, escaped from the cell with the aid of some of the officers in the command.
Some officers of the command were allegedly fingered to have aided the escape of some suspects from the cell after been heavily induced.
An insider source who pleaded not to be mentioned told our correspondent that there is a notorious syndicate in the command who specialises in collecting bribe from suspects and aiding them to escape.
In his words”oga, these suspects can not escape on their own without the aid of these officers because the wall of the cell is so high that it will be very difficult to break.”
“Only a small portion of the cell was broken but we suspect that the main door was opened at night for their escape because that portion , we believe was too narrow for any human being to pass through”
” We understand that one of the suspects in the cell gave a phone number of a certain fellow who in turn reached out to some of our men that facilitated their escape” the source said.
It was learnt that the guard in charge of the cell was alleged to be dead drunk on the fateful day.
When contacted, the state commandant, Samuel Peter Maigari confirmed the incident and said that he has ordered that those on duty during the cell break be detained while a full discreet investigations be conducted to fish out those who aided the escape.
He however denied knowing any syndicate in the command, nor any one who collected bribe to facilitate the escape of the suspects.
