Shockwaves of sadness and revulsion over the brutal mass murder on of 10 Department of State Security (DSS) agents on Tuesday, September 15 continue to reverberate across the nation.
It is highly regrettable that the criminal cabal of pipeline vandals have taken their malfeasance from rupturing oil and gas pipeline infrastructure into cold-blooded, premeditated murder of undercover police officers.
The earlier this virus of the cabal’s murderers is hunted down, rounded up by all the security agencies in concert, the faster their brutality will be stopped from spreading to other communities.
Media reports during the week, as yet to be confirmed, said at least nine DSS agents were shot dead at Alepo, Ogun State in one fell swoop. Obviously, it was no accidental discharge.
Whether the pipeline vandals chose mass murder to announce their recrudescence into the brigandage and stealing of national assets after 100 days’ lull is unclear.
But their brazen, callous and cruel intimidation technique deserves to be countered with superior federal government force.
Over the years, pipeline vandals siphon crude oil and other refined products and gas supplies with impunity.
These liquid and gas products are easier to transport cheaply and fast by pipelines than by easily damaged roads and by bulk railway networks which are not yet optimally functional.
Mass deaths follow from bonfires ignited while large numbers of poor residents of neighbouring communities rush to scoop fuel gushing from the burst pipes into jerry cans when the criminals were done and the fuel spills out to pollute the environment.
It is no secret that wherever the oil pipelines pass, in the absence of effective community policing, the criminal vandals move in.
Speculations are rife that they are aided by former employees of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) who were sacked in the recent downsizing, ethnic militias who were beneficiaries of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s juicy pipeline surveillance contracts, and former militants, among others.
Alepo is a notorious Lagos outpost for criminal activities redolent with the smell of gas, money, and crime. But extending them to mass murder of security agents crossed the sacrosanct red line.
It is bad enough to have a premeditated assassination of one agent. Ten of them is beyond pardon. It is time for the law to hunt down the cruel, heartless vandals.
No mercy, no restraint, and no regards for beasts who have no respect for the right to life and freedom of others.
All the security and quasi-security agencies must be pressed into action to hunt down the murderers whether in the creeks, swamps or terra firma.
No resources should be spared, no intelligence or manpower is a waste in a well-coordinated, collaborative effort of the police, military, security, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corporation, vigilante groups, among others.
The experience gained from Alepo clean up will serve as a template for the continuation of the pipeline rupture-free communities of the first 100 days of the Buhari administration.
Power and fuel consumers had heaved a sigh of relief that they were enjoying longer hours of electricity; moreover, fuel queues of jerry can-carrying consumers seeking to fill vehicles and noisy generators disappeared.
Indeed, it is obvious that the time to worry about anything going wrong in Nigeria is when it all seems to be working well.
While the coordinated security agencies hunt down the current criminals, DSS officers must remember that as undercover agents, they must live and behave as such.
The reckless, irresponsible ones among them who prostitute their ID cards as meal tickets to extort money, free food, drinks and sex from roadside bukas and drinking bars, or display their service pistols to show their power to the latest women catch betray their colleagues for the disastrous setup and ambush they were caught up in.
Worse still, the fact that they had no foreknowledge of the ambush implies their failure to infiltrate at least one deadly criminal cabal in their jurisdiction. A costly failure they did not live to regret, as the saying goes.
It is completely unacceptable that criminal characters and hoodlums will vandalise economic infrastructure which sabotages our collective efforts at nation building.
To kill the policing agents in the sabotage should aggravate the punishment when they have their day in court.
