15 December 2015, Calabar —The Nigerian Navy says it has established double presence on the waterways to forestall crime and checkmate activities of sea pirates in the Niger Delta with a view to safeguarding lives and property of people living and doing business in the region.
Speaking with Vanguard shortly after the Navy’s quarterly exercise in Calabar, Cross River State, the Flag Officer Commanding, FOC, Eastern Naval Command, Rear Admiral Atiku Abdulkadir, disclosed that the Navy had redoubled its presence in the axis to check and curb the activities of criminals on the waterways.
The FOC who was represented by Com. Henry Ekpa, reaffirmed the Navy’s commitment to fight crime especially during the yuletide to ensure that there was peace both on land and on the waterways.
According to him, Calabar area and the whole region of NNS is putting up standard patrol and FOB Ibaka had redoubled its patrol by putting up maximum effort to ensure sea pirates don’t have a filled day while making sure that sea users have safe passage and do their lawful businesses this season.
“We know that there are a lot of people who are spending their money on research with a view to devising perfect means and techniques to commit crime, break laws and inconvenience other human being, but we are not resting on our oars, we are putting up maximum effort to curb criminality on our waterways. We don’t want to record any sea robbery and we don’t want pirates to operate and there wont be any form of freedom of action for them,” he stated.
He emphasized that their presence may not prevent criminals from trying to commit crime but they were doing everything possible to ensure that they won’t gain from anything from their harvest.
