Operatives of the Department of State Security, DSS, on Tuesday clamped down on members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers who went around to enforce the shutting down of filling stations in protest over the arrest of four of their members for alleged attempt to smuggle petroleum products out of the country.
Reports indicate that several members of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers have been arrested in Kano for what the DSS described as an illegal act of closing filling stations.
An Operative of the DSS who pleaded anonymity, said that eight filling stations shut down by the PTD members, had already been opened.
He said, “We have arrested so many of them for closing down filling stations without justifications, This is because we cannot allow lawlessness in the State”.
The Petroleum Tanker Drivers had commenced indefinite strike over what they called daily harassment of their members by the Nigeria Customs Service.
The drivers also alleged that the custom officials arrested them while they were driving around some Villages by capitalizing on the Border closure as well as the stopping of Sales of Petroleum to arrest and intimidate them.
However, Customs had denied alleged arrest of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, rather, they said they arrested those moving out of Nigeria with the products.
Spokesman of the Custom in Kano Danbaba lsah confirmed the arrest of four trailers at a border town of Katsina state.
He also said that one of the tanker have been released, after investigation, we discovered that it was genuinely distributing the product to road constructors.
