Warri: 'Terror Gang' Smashed, Four Arrested
From Onwuka Nzeshi in Warri
The Joint Task Force (Operation Restore Hope) yesterday announced that its troops have successfully smashed one of the most dreaded "terror gangs" said to be the brain behind the series of sea-piracy and kidnapping of oil workers in Delta State.
It paraded the four-man gang led by one John Togo, a name said to have been a recurring decimal in intelligence reports.
Togo and his gang, THISDAY gathered, were arrested in Port Harcourt where plain clothes detectives trailed them to after they fled their hideout in Warri following the renewed offensive launched against criminals by Governor James Ibori of Delta State.
Military sources said Togo is the ring leader and mastermind of the various incidents of armed robbery, sea piracy, kidnap of oil workers as well as the unprovoked attacks on security forces drafted to the area to keep peace.
Commander of the Joint Task Force, Brig. Gen. Elias Zamani, who paraded the gang at the headquarters of Operation Restore Hope, Warri disclosed that the bandits have been on the list of the most wanted criminals in Delta State.
According to Zamani, the Joint Task Force has been on the trail of this group in the last eight months, adding that the series of "cordon and search" operations recently launched by security forces in selected communities in the riverine parts of Delta were all geared towards tracking down this same gang.
"Specifically, on October 24, 2003, after their dislodgment from Ayakoromov the group fled to Ogbe-Ijoh where they terrorised innocent citizens, planned and went into the creeks to kidnap seven expatriates that were later released at a ransom.
"Consequently upon renewed vigour of the joint task force in view of the on-going operations to finally rid the creeks of these hoodlums, they recently fled to Camp Orugbo and hibernated in Bomadi along the waterways. This led to the encounter with JTF troops at Pere-Otugbene where 17 members of the gang were killed by the Joint Task Force," Zamani disclosed.
Preliminary investigations have also linked the group to the series of bank robberies in the coastal towns of Sapele, Abraka, Warri and Otu-Jeremi.
Togo, the kingpin of the gang, has however, made some confessional statements on the activities of his men as well as the involvement of some prominent personalities in Delta State in gun running and the perpetuation of crime in the state.
Armed attacks and kidnapping of oil workers and on oil facilities west of the Niger Delta region, have been a source of concern to the Federal Government.
The nation was jolted last April when heavily armed militants attacked a boat carrying oil workers and security operatives on the Benin River, killing seven of its occupants including four workers and three naval personnel. Two of the oil workers were Americans.
ChevronTexaco, which the workers were working for, promptly suspended plans to resume oil production in the Warri area of Delta State. The suspension has till date deprived the country of a loss of 140,000 barrels per day of crude oil production.
The Delta State government promised to give N10 million to anybody that would give information that could lead to the arrest of the criminals.
Suspected militants had weeks before then, abducted a ChevronTexaco employee. The abductors submitted an eight-point demand for the oil company to meet before releasing the staff.
Also in March this year, seven foreign oil workers including two Colombians, a Briton, one Australian, a Russian and a Scot, were abducted while testing an evacuation boat. The kidnappers demanded N46 million as ransom to release their hostages.
Nigerian Navy personnel had two weeks before then, rescued another 16 oil workers held hostage by Ijaw militants on two ChevronTexaco oil platforms offshore Bayelsa State, leading to the loss of 23,000 bpd. One of the militants was killed while another and an oil worker were wounded during the operation.
Barely three days later, the militants took hostage nine oil workers employed by Shell. The contract workers were ambushed while ferrying supplies by barge to Shell's Forcados/Yokri oil and gas facility in the Niger Delta.
In April 2003, over 100 Nigerians and foreign oil workers were held hostage on a rig offshore Rivers State for about a week.
At the height of the kidnappings, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), said the Niger Delta region was becoming unsafe for oil workers.
The unions had late last year given the Federal Government ultimatum to end the seige on workers failing which they would ask their members to withdraw from the Niger Delta.
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