Police in Nasarawa State have arrested the Special Adviser on Infrastructure to Governor Abdullahi Sule and 16 others for allegedly vandalising railway tracks and slippers in Lafia and Keana Local Government Areas of the state.
State Police Commissioner, Bola Longe, disclosed this on Thursday in Lafia, while parading the suspects at the Command Headquarters.
Longe explained that the suspects had been in the business of buying and selling railway tracks and slippers from other suspected vandals but luck ran out on them when the police got hint of their criminal act and planned their arrest.
“The Command developed a strategic anti-vandalism template to arrest the tide of this unwholesome scenerio. It is gratifying to note that this template paid off when police operatives swooped on the vandals at their theatre of operation while vandalising and carting away railway tracks/slippers along Agyaragu Tofa in Lafia Local Government Area and Angwan Alago of Kadarko district in Keana Local Government Area,” he said.
The governor’s aide told newsmen that he was not aware that the items sold to him were vandalised.
He said, “I am a businessman. I have an agent that supplies things to me and I believed in him. The agent is dead. He died last month in an accident along Akwanga/Nasarawa Eggon road. It was the first time they brought the railway tracks and slippers to me. After buying, I sold it for N3.6 million.”
The suspects arrested include two policemen, personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, a former Supervisory Councilor on Education in the state and a Chinese national.
The Nasarawa Police Command also paraded 37 suspected Kidnappers, eight robbery suspects and five other suspects arrested for sundry offences.
The police commissioner explained that the Command recovered some items, including five firearms, 6 vehicles, 3 motorcycles, 2 live ammunition and N760,000.