The Department of State Services (DSS) on Friday arrested the Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, over what it described as economic sabotage, including stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products, belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The agency has also accused Ubah of undermining the country by inciting the members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) section of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) to stop the lifting of petroleum products with the ulterior motive of arm-twisting the NNPC to abandon the cause of recovering the stolen products.
A spokesman of DSS, Tony Opuiyo, said in a statement yesterday that the arrest, which was sequel to Ubah’s engagement in acts of economic sabotage, was in line with the statutory mandate of the agency to investigate economic crimes of national security dimension.
Following an allegation by the NNPC that Ubah sold its 82 million litres of petrol valued at over N11 billion without appropriate authorisation by the corporation, the DSS had in March asked Ubah to report daily to its headquarters, pending the conclusion of its investigation.
NNPC had also carried out its own internal investigation to ascertain the level of complicity of its staff in the illegal sale of its product and three of its top management staff who were found culpable at the end of the investigation, were compulsorily retired.
The retired officials include: Managing Director of NNPC Retail Ltd., Mrs. Esther Nnamdi-Ogbue; Executive Director of Operations at NNPC Retail Ltd., Mr. Alpha Mamza; and the Manager of Distribution at NNPC Retail Ltd., Mr. Oluwa Kayode Erinoso. (Thisday)
