What we know about Glonik hotel — residents speak on Lagos den of ‘oil vandals’

A gang of suspected pipeline vandals was busted Wednesday in Abule-Egba area of Lagos state. The facility, Glonik Hotel, 31, Social Club road, residents say was an entertainment hub and no one would have suspected it being used as hideouts for oil thieves.

A surveillance team of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had reportedly traced the smell of petrol to a burst pipeline which was channeled to a waiting tanker at the hotel.

“I see tankers come into this street regularly,” Aliyu, a commercial motorcycle rider, told TheCable when the newspaper visited the scene on Thursday.

“This street is a busy one, and most weekend people come here to club, and in fact, the number one nightclub on this street is Glonik hotel. So, we were shocked when security operatives came in yesterday and uncovered a vandals’ hideout.”

Another resident who anonymously spoke with TheCable said the act must have been going on for a long while because she had always seen tankers driving towards the hotel.

“When I see these tankers, I would think they had come to supply the hotel with diesel,” she said.

Tens of security operatives from the Nigerian army, Nigeria police force, and the pipeline patrol team of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) have since taken over the hotel. Nigerian army personnel, especially, are seen conducting a stop and search exercise.

“Our commander sent us here from the Ojo cantonment,” one of the soldiers said. “The authorities believe that some of the criminals could still be around the area, and that is why we have been stationed here since yesterday, and some of us are just tired of standing here in the sun.”

A policeman and the hotel manager were reported to have escaped when security operatives moved in yesterday.

An NNPC official who came to the scene with his team refused to speak about what happened. “I am not authorized to talk on this, but the authorities would issue a statement,” he said, leading his team into the hotel.

Delivering a speech in Lagos last year, Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, said Nigeria has recorded 1, 600 cases of pipeline vandalism since January, 2016.