The bodies of the engineers of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation killed by vandals in Arepo, Ogun State, have been recovered, so says the police.
The bodies of the engineers, who were killed on September 8, 2012 during a repair operation of a pipeline damaged by hoodlums, were reportedly recovered on Sunday.
An Assistant Commissioner of Police with the Lagos State Police Command, Friday Ibadin, confirmed the development.
Ibadin, who is the Head, Special Task Force on Anti-Pipeline Vandalism, said that the bodies recovered were those of a Deputy Manager in charge of Pipelines Right of Way and two other engineers.
Their bodies were found in two shallow graves near a river bank in the Arepo area.
Ibadin said: “We found, in a decomposing state, bullet-ridden bodies of the three victims.
“We learnt that the body of the local security guard employed by NNPC, Taye (a.k.a Dead Man), was cut into pieces and disposed of.”
He said it took four weeks to locate the bodies, adding that the team would have succeeded in its assignment of putting out the fire that broke out as a result of the vandalisation of the pipeline and also repaired the damaged end of the pipeline if it was not stopped in its track.
Ibadin said: “The team was on the verge of gaining access to the damaged point to commence proper assessment of the scope of work when the vandals killed three members and injured several others.
“In the course of investigation, six suspects were arrested.
“We gathered from the confession of one of the suspects that he knew where the NNPC workers were buried.
“Initially, he took our team to a spot and after several hours, the bodies were not found.
“Two days later, he opened up and agreed to take us to the real spot.
“It took six hours of sailing to get to the spot.
“We had 40 heavily armed men and we took along a pathologist, a coroner and the medical team from NNPC that eventually identified the bodies.
“They took us to a place where they claimed they bury non-natives.
“With the assistance of one Bosco, Peter Opidi and the suspect, we were shown two shallow graves.
“It was there that we discovered the bodies and they have been deposited at a mortuary.”
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