The Nigerian Navy has destroyed an illegal refinery at Awoye, a riverine community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State.
The Commander, Forward Operating Base, FOB, Igbokoda, Captain Wasuku Alushi, disclosed this while speaking with newsmen on Wednesday.
According to him, the action was part of the navy’s determination to curb criminal activities such as kidnapping, crude oil theft and illegal bunkering.
Alushi said the FOB launched an operation two weeks ago to clear the riverine areas of Ondo of criminal elements, noting that aerial intelligence was received during that operation on the illegal refinery.
He said, “In the course of that operation, we got aerial intelligence of these illegal refining sites, since then we have been planning judiciously. The terrain was a very difficult one, it is a whole network of criminal enterprises, as you can see, there is stolen crude, this engineering method was carefully carried out by these criminal elements.
“What we are doing is in furtherance to the dictates of the Chief of Naval Staff, which is to stamp out illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft as well as other criminal acts from the riverine communities.
“The strategy was in three folds. The first is to arrest the criminal elements at the point of stealing the crude, if we cannot get them there then we can get to their illegal refining sites, good enough, we caught them at the point of refining.
“We have deactivated those illegal refineries, the next step is to crush the relics, which would discourage them even when they have the thought of reactivating those refineries, we would follow up with information and destroy them all.”
