The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Oyo State Command, has arrested three officials of the Oyo State Road Traffic Management Agency (OYRTMA) for alleged stealing of 70 bags of maize COVID-19 palliatives.
The NSCDC Commandant in the state, Iskilu Akinsanya, paraded the suspects on Thursday at the command Headquarter, Agodi, Ibadan.
Akinsanya said the suspects were arrested by the NSCDC officials on Wednesday at about 9pm at the Oyo State Secretariate when loading the stolen items.
The commandant said that the NSCDC intelligent report had it that some people are in the habit of breaking into government secretariate’s ware house to loot some items.
“Our effort yielded result yesterday (Wednesday) around 21:00hrs, the suspects were arrested loading the items that are meant for the people in the state as palliatives.
” This has been happening for a long time and we have been trying to pin them down and we are able to arrest them yesterday.
“This is what we have being talking about, government meant well for the society but there are some unscrupulous people in the society that want to truncate government’s effort,” he said.
Akinsanya said NSCDC in the state are ever ready to flush out criminals out of the society and would not allow this kind of bad attitude to continue to happen.
He assured the good people of Oyo State of adequate security and urged them to continue given them useful information that would assist in quickly getting the criminals out of the society.
The commandant said investigation on the matter still continue and that the suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigation completed.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), one of the suspects, an OTRMA official, said that an official of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in charge of the palliatives gave them the items as an assistance.
He admitted that it was not the first time that they have been given the items.
The suspect said that they were arrested when they are unable to provide tangible information on how they got the items.
Also speaking, a 56-year-old driver and father of four, said he was not aware that the items were stolen and only obey the officers on uniform called him to come and help them carry the items.
“The officer that call me was one of the operation patrol team I do meet on the road and that is why I obey him when he called me,” the driver said.
Source:(NAN)
