Suspected militants on Thursday night bombed an oil installation belonging to the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) at Owhrode community in Udu Local Government Area (LGA) of Delta State.
The gas pipeline supplies the Delta Steel Company with gas.
The President General of Owhrode community, Michael Odjo, confirmed the explosion to SaharaReporters.
Mr. Odjo said that they heard the explosion at about 11:00pm on Thursday. He said that, “immediately I mobilized my co-executive members, youths, and members of the local vigilante to the points of oil facilities in the area but couldn’t find anything.”
“So, we returned and blocked all access roads in and out of the community in a bid to apprehend the suspected militants but couldn’t find any” he added.
“On Friday morning we discovered that it was the NPDC gas pipeline that supplies DSC gas that was blown up,’’ he said.
According to Mr. Odjo the pipeline was the only oil facility in the area and that they reported the matter to the nearby police station.
He appealed to the management of the NPDC to engage the host community to secure the pipeline.
A police source at the Ovwian/Aladja Police station, who did not want his name mentioned, also confirmed the incident to SaharaReporters.
According to the police source, “when we got there we found out that the gas pipeline was blown with dynamite connected to a battery which the perpetrators left at the crime scene.”
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Udu Local Government, Mr Solomon Kpomah, has condemned the act.
He said that he was happy that the affected pipeline was not currently active.
“What saves the situation is that the affected pipeline is not currently in use because DSC is not functioning at the moment,’’ he said.
