STRATEGICALLY located at the nation’s territorial water way, the Atlas Cove oil facility, a major distributive channel of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has for sometime now, elicited security alerts, following the July 12, 2009 attack, allegedly by a group operating under the aegis of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).
After the attack, which led to the death of about four persons, including a senior navy personnel, it became clear to the relevant authorities that there was dire need to provide maximum security in and around the oil installation.
Consequently, a combined team of armed soldiers and policemen were drafted to the area to beef up an already existing security arrangement; especially when the group which claimed responsibility for the attack threatened to launch a repeated one. It was on this premise that movement around the oil facility was restricted and a dusk to dawn patrol intensified.
Perhaps, these arrangements may not be known to 18 persons who were rounded up in a boat near the facility by naval personnel. They were said to be members of a militant group on a vision to vandalize oil installations. But the suspects flatly denied the allegation, insisting that they belong to a dreaded campus cult known as the Supreme Vikings, saying that they were innocently sailing when security agents swooped on them.
Reports say the suspects, who were spotted on a speed boat with red band tide around their heads, were surreptitiously moving towards the oil facility, chanting war songs when they were rounded up. They were promptly taken into custody.
Read More:http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/11/fatal-voyage-how-18-cultists-sailed-into-troubled-waters/
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