|
Navy recovers over $600m
illegal crude oil, says Agbiti
By Alex
Oni
Correspondent, Lagos
The Eastern Naval Command
alone recovered crude oil valued at over $600 million from illegal
bunkering within a period of three years, the court-martial tribunal
trying three top Naval chiefs for alleged complicity in the disappearance
of ocean vessel, M.T. African Pride heard on
Tuesday.
The former Flag Officer
Commanding (FOC), Eastern Naval Command, Rear Admiral Francis Agbiti from
July 26, 1999 to April 2002 and one of the three officers standing trial
stated this in his evidence in chief as he continued his
defence.
Agbiti said within the same
period, the command arrested 85 badges and 65 boats for illegal bunkering
activities and that non got missing and disclosed that in the last one
year, 24 ships and 54 badges were arrested by the Navy. He said two of the
ships were so far declared missing and gave their names as M.T. African
Pride and M.T. Jimoh.
adding that till date, nobody
could locate M.T. African pride but that M.T. Jimoh was re-arrested at
Port Harcourt on another failed bunkering mission and had changed her name
to M.T Destiny.
In an unsworn statement in his
defence, another accused officer, Rear Admiral Samuel Kolawole, who was
the FOC Western Naval Command when M.T. African Pride was declared missing
told the tribunal that the handing over process from the former FOC West,
Rear Admiral Antonio Bob-Manuel, who was appointed to the Command and
Staff College Jaji as Deputy Commandant, was hurriedly
done.
He complained that the
information he received was therefore insufficient to put him in the true
perspective of what had been going on within the
command.
�In fact, the only reference
he made to any arrested vessel was in two sentences in the whole handing
over note, just at the bottom part of paragraph II�.
Kolawole maintained that the
information was too vague to portray all that had transpired between the
Naval Headquarters (NHQ) and the command on the one hand; and between the
command and the bases on the other hand, under whose command the arrested
vessels were placed.
�There was no mention of any
letters from NHQ about the release or no release of any vessels to the
police. The various incidents that had occurred before my arrival as have
been made known to this court, were not in the handing over note nor
specifically mentioned to me�, Kolawole said.
| 
