The Lagos State Police Command on Friday confirmed the arrest of some hoodlums who vandalized and stole telecommunications cables worth N60m in the Ojodu Berger and Ogba areas of the state.
The suspects, who wore green vests, came in a military van, marked OP MESSA Sector 3 005, with number plate NA 0002 9 Brigade and allegedly excavated and cut the cables before packing them into a truck.
The Punch gathered that the vandalized cables belonged to a firm, Peace Global Satellite Communications Limited, PGSC, however while the hoodlums carried out their illegal act, a worker of PGSC, was said to have accosted them, ordering them to stop the act but he was allegedly beaten up by a soldier who accompanied them.
The incident happened on Saturday at about 2pm.
The suspects, numbering eight, reportedly vandalized the cables on the grounds that they belonged to the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited and that their firm had bought the NITEL cables.
The unnamed victim was said to have reported the matter at the Ojodu Police Division and the police ordered the truck carrying the vandalized cables to be brought to the station.
Confirming the incident, the Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Damasus Ozoani, said the suspects were invited on Sunday to make statements at the station after which they were detained.
Ozoani said the case was under investigation and the suspects will soon be charged to court.
Commenting on the incident, the Managing Director of PGSC, Livingstone Oreye, said, “On Saturday, at about 2pm, I received a call that some unknown persons were cutting the underground cables bought and installed by the firm since 2004.
“My workers explained to the copper dealers that the cables belonged to a private firm and not NITEL. But the workers forcefully broke into our underground joint box and cut over 1,200 petrol jelly-filled cables at several joints.
“The suspects instigated a soldier to slap one of my workers, boasting that we could not do anything. They claimed that the cables belonged to NITEL, but we told them that the cables have PGSC inscriptions on them and that they have no right to trespass on a private property.
“The workers refused and moved from one joint box to another, vandalising our cables and putting them in the truck they brought. The damage has affected the company’s operations since Saturday and the cables in circulation now cannot be as strong as the ones vandalized by the suspects.
“The act of vandalism has affected our telephone network and the perpetrators should be prosecuted. The cables, which were produced by Kable Metal, are no longer easy to get as the company has stopped producing in Nigeria.
“All the underground cables from Ogba down to Omole and Ojodu Berger were vandalised by the suspects, who claimed that only NITEL could afford such cables,” Oreye said, urging the State Commissioner of Police, CP, Fatai Owoseni, to investigate the matter and bring those behind the destruction to face the law.
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