5th November, 2010
The police at the Dolphin Estate Police Division, Ikoyi, Lagos are not relenting in their efforts to ensure maximum security for the elite residents of Dolphin Estate and Osbourne.
Their level of alertness, especially in the protection of infrastructure, paid off recently when they arrested two young men, members of a gang of four, who in collaboration with some PHCN officials have been vandalising PHCN installations and cables in Ikoyi and environs.
The suspected cable vandals were said to be have being vandalizing PHCN underground cables around the PHCN platform at Osbourne, Ikoyi and the Dolphin-Osbourne highway for a long time, and in the process plunging residents into total darkness and disrupting electricity on the newly rehabilitated streets and the highway.
The vandals were arrested following a distress call to the DPO in charge of Dolphin Estate Police Division, by some concerned PHCN officials attached to Ikoyi District, that vandals were tampering with the underground cables and disrupting the power supply to the area.
The DPO was said to have mobilised his men, who immediately deployed around the area and after combing the bush around the PHCN platform at Osbourne, arrested two suspects inside a manhole where all the underground 33 KV cables serving Ikoyi, Obalende and Lagos Island passes through.
The arrested suspects gave their names as Emeka Igwe from Abia State and Banuso Adegeye from Oyo State. Those at large are Friday a.k.a Fryo, Monday and Ironman.
Items recovered from them include bundles of cooper wires which they dragged out from under the bridge near the Dolphin Estate, saw blades and pliers.
In his confession to the police, Emeka claimed that he was introduced to the business by Fryo and he had only participated in the operation twice and he was given N3,000.
“We decided to cut the latest 33KVA cable to make more money because Fryo had been cheating us as we do not follow them to sell the cables,” he said.
Speaking at the scene, a PHCN official who did not want his name in print said, “we must thank the DPO and his men for doing a good job. If the thieves had succeeded in cutting the 33 KVA cable, all the residents of Lagos Island and Ikoyi would have been plunged into total darkness and it would have been difficult to trace the fault.
He added that one metre of the cable is worth N40,000. We must also thank the CP Lagos State for posting the DPO to Dolphin Estate. Efforts made by P.M.NEWS to see the DPO for comments proved abortive but a police source informed the reporter that the suspects have been arraigned in court.
—Paul Iyoghojie
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