Nigeria Is Fighting Infrastructure Terrorism-Power Minister

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

The minister of state for power, on Mohammed Wakil has alerted the public over what he called infrastructure terrorism now afflicting critical national infrastructures and sabotaging government programmes in some sectors of the economy.

Hon Wakil Mohammed

Speaking at a press briefing on the state of the power sector at the ministry of power headquarters yesterday, Wakil defined infrastructure terrorism as an organized sabotage of government installations without economic motive, a development he said has become rampart in the oil and power sectors of the economy.

” We are battling terrorism of a different kind. A new form of terrorism targeting critical national infrastructures is worrisome. Attacking oil pipelines is normally linked with economic motivation. Now gas pipelines are been targeted. Gas cannot be stolen.

“Some transmission lines are not spared. Attacks on gas pipelines and transmission lines are condemnable. It cannot be a coincidence that it is when the power sector is moving to climb above the 4MW level that the so called sabotage intensifies to draw us back. This is no longer sabotage, it is infrastructure terrorism and we are responding “, the minister said.

While commending security agencies for rising to the occasion, the minister said the administration is designing comprehensive framework to secure national infrastructures and tackle this new threats which he said is targeted at slowing down the Federal Government from achieving its set goals in the power sector. This he said was in addition to special funding designed to protect pipelines among others.

“I call on communities hosting critical infrastructures to join hands with security agencies to stop this menace. We should not play politics with national infrastructures “, the minister counseled.

“This administration has recorded giant strides in the power sector. It has recorded historical milestones unprecedented in national history. The constant attacks on power infrastructures are meant to slow us down. Saboteurs will fail as the administration is putting in place measures to checkmate such unpatriotic activities”, the minister said.