Rose Ejembi Makurdi
The Benue State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has arrested eight suspects for offences such as criminal conspiracy, vandalization of government’s critical national assets, theft, criminal breach of trust and cheating persons.
Parading the suspects at the state headquarters of the Command at the weekend state Commandant, Sule Okeji disclosed that six among the suspects were arrested along Udam-Yagba-Lafia Road near NYSC Farm in Makurdi.
The suspects including Shaibu Sule, Sani Ibrahim, Sagir Abubakar, Alhaji Usman, Danlami Awai and Abdulgafar Tijani were nabbed for illegally removing railway slippers, nuts and bolts.
The commandant said the suspects were caught red handed with a truckload of the rail line components, which they were conveying to an unknown destination.
Okeji who noted that the arrest was made possible by intensified surveillance on critical national infrastructure and assets added that during the arrest, the main suspect who hired the truck, the driver as well as one of the loaders escaped.
He said on interrogation, the suspects confessed that they were hired by the prime suspect (now at large) to only participate in loading the truck with the vandalized rail line slippers, nuts and bolts.
The commandant, while emphasizing the resolve of the Corps in carrying out its core mandate of protecting critical national assets and infrastructure, averred that vandalization of rail line components amounts to economic sabotage even as he warned vandals to steer clear of Benue.