The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has implored the federal government to create Pipelines Protection Agency in the country.

On Saturday, pipelines were vandalised in Arepo village and over 10 people were killed.

The union’s Acting General Secretary, Comrade Isaac Aberare said in Lagos that the agency will be vested with the responsibility of manning, protecting and providing security for the over, 5,150 kilometres stretch of oil pipelines spanning through the nooks and crannies of the country.

He said: “The federal government should also equip the agency with helicopter gun-ships, gun-boats, specially trained men and women to police the pipelines in the country because the present arrangement of using the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps has not yielded any positive result and the country continues to lose billions of crude and refined products to vandals and loss of lives of its citizenry.”

Abarere, who condemned the activities of oil vandals, especially the recent vandalisation of an oil pipeline in Arepo, said that vandals arrested should be treated as economic saboteurs and made to face the wrath of the law.

He also called on the special unit of the anti-pipelines vandalisation squad in the office of the Inspector General of Police to be alive to its responsibility in monitoring, intelligence gathering of the system 2B area, which carries fuel from the Atlas Cove to Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and Kwara states

He said: “We condemn the activities of oil vandals, especially the recent vandalisation of an oil pipeline in Arepo, in Ogun state, which left some people dead. We urge government to henceforth ensure that vandals arrested are treated as economic saboteurs and made to face the wrath of the law.

“We also call for a twenty-four hours surveillance of the Arepo end, as the swampy area should be cleared, so that there will be visibility, instead of the present bushy environment, where the pipelines traverse.”