BEVERLY HILLS, January 21, (THEWILL) – The Chief of Naval Staff, CNS, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ekwe Ibas has declared that the Nigerian Navy would henceforth treat attacks such as last week’s bombing of several oil and gas installations by militants in Delta State as terrorist attack rather than mere pipeline vandalism.
Speaking yesterday while delivering a lecture to Course 24 participants at the National Defence College entitled ‘Nigerian Navy: Challenges and Future Perspectives’, the CNS described the incidents as unfortunate
He explained that the Navy has decided not to take the sabotage lightly because the act was capable of undermining the Force’s recent push in sanitizing the nation’s maritime sector.
According to him, “The incident that just happened recently is rather unfortunate and of course that cannot be taken lightly by any serious nation and of course the Nigerian Navy is not going to take it lightly as well.
“We have made it clear that it goes beyond just mere vandalism for the purpose of making any gains; this is absolute sabotage, something that can even be termed terrorism.
“If the guys were doing that to derive benefit from the destruction then one will say it is vandalism but that is not the case”.
Admiral Ibas, while observing that conventional courts have failed to arrest the menace of maritime crimes, advocated the establishment of special courts to address the situation, stressing that many of the suspects arrested by the Navy in the past had often exploited lapses in the nation’s judicial system to evade justice.
His words, “Over 163 suspects were arrested by the Navy for various crimes and handed over for prosecution by relevant law enforcement agencies between January and December 2015.
“Experience has shown that suspects explore lapses in our judicial system to evade prosecution. We believe that the establishment of a special court or tribunal that is mandated to address all the outstanding cases with respect to the seizures and arrests made by the Navy will reduce the incidences of the illegality in the maritime sector.”
