This technological wizardry has not departed from the people. Thus it is not by accident that Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State is called the Japan of Africa as there is nothing that you want constructed or fabricated in the city, you cannot get.
This rear and great gift of creativity are also found in the leatherette sub-sector where shoes, bags, waist belts and allied products made in Aba compare favourably with others in any part of the world.
But not too happy enough, this Igbo man’s ingenuity was recently put into wrong use when the police discovered illegal refineries built and run by the locals in a village in Ukwa West Local Government of Abia State.
Before the carving out of Abia from the old Imo State in 1991, the Ukwa East and Ukwa West local government areas were just one – Ukwa. The area single-handedly gave Abia its status as an oil producing state.
Though Ukwa may be the hen that lays the golden egg for Abia, it has on the other hand remained a problematic child of sorts.
When kidnappers held sway in Abia and Aba in particular, nobody knew that Ugwati in Ukwa West Local Government where Obioma Nwankwo a.k.a Osisikankwo and his second in command in crime, Stone hailed from, was their headquarters. It took the kidnap of the 15 school children which drew wide condemnation and the eventual deployment of soldiers for the world to know that actually the sleepy village of Ugwuati was the base where the man that held Abia and neighbouring states on the jugular hailed and operated from there.
Just as the Augean stable was being cleared and Abia’s battered image beginning to be better again, an ugly incident happened again.
On May 13, the police in Aba got a tip off about the operation of illegal refineries at the sleepy village of Ezendioma in Ukwa West Local Government.
The Aba area commander of the Nigeria police, Rabiu Dayi quickly mobilized his men to the area. On the first day of the operation, which involved a combined team of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), the mobile police unit and the regular police, 40 suspects were arrested, including 148 (50 liters) of jerry cans, six buses stationed at the sites to lift the locally refined petroleum products which were filled in jerry cans to where they would be sold.
On the second day of the raid which was more of a mop up operation and led by Hassan Bala, the Abia State commissioner of police himself, one suspect was arrested, bringing the number of those arrested in connection with the operation of the illegal refineries to 41.
Bala who was alarmed by the magnitude of what he saw inside the forest, directed the Aba Area Commander to invite the traditional ruler of the community of the area to his office in Umuahia for a meeting on how best to stop the illegal business going on in his community.
He gave his words that the police was going to destroy all the illegal refineries and the Aba Area Commander was directed to invite the traditional ruler of the community for a meeting at Umuahia on how best to eradicate the illegal petroleum product refining business in the area.
He threatened to take decisive action against the royal father and the villagers if after these measures the illegal trade continued.
Hassan while advising youths of the area to engage in meaningful things to eke out a living said the police would do everything within its powers to ensure that illegal refining of products and bunkering going on in the area which he said was not only an economic sabotage to the nation but also a dangerous venture as over 70 per cent of cases of petroleum products adulteration came from the source.
He ordered the immediate destruction of all the six illegal refineries discovered in the area.
A cartel is involved in this illegal business which moves in a somewhat triangular form. One of the suspects who gave his name as Sheddrack Chinedu and who spoke to journalists said they were involved in the illegal business because it was from where they make out a living for themselves.
Chinedu, a native of Umuahia who claimed to be the husband of the vice principal of a high school in Aba said they buy crude oil from agents who brought them from Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states to Akwete in Ukwa East Local Government, using the waterways.
The crude, he said, would then be transported through road to the forests of Ezendioma overlooking the Asa High School, the army camp of the Operation Jubilee’, where it is refined in locally constructed refineries that lack the taste of modernity.
It is quite heartwarming that the police discovered and destroyed the six illegal refineries at Ezendioma, but the worrisome aspect according to Daily Sun investigation is that these illegal refineries abound in greater measures in some other communities in the area and if nothing drastic was done immediately, both the security and economic implication would be difficult to contend.
Read more:http://www.naijapals.com.com/page.html#ixzz456 http://www.naijapals.com.com/group/crime/forum/topics/police-destroy-six-illegal#ixzz1OexZTL6l
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