In recent news, the Nigerian Navy (NN) said at the weekend that it arrested a Ghanaian rogue ship with two million litres of crude oil and a syndicate of 13 crew members, one Ghanaian and 12 Nigerians, on board a Ghanaian-owned/registered vessel, Motor Tanker (MT) SWEET MIRI on February 25, 2024. Furthermore, the Navy disclosed that the arrest of the Ghanaian rogue ship was the outcome of its newly launched ‘Operation Delta Sanity’. A statement issued by the Spokesman of the Nigerian Navy, Rear Admiral Ayo-Vaughan, said the arrest of the economic saboteurs, who were bent on stealing the nation’s natural resources was made at about 174 nm (approximately 320km) off Nigeria’s coast heading towards the Benin Republic after the vessel was observed to have switched off her Automatic Identification System (AIS) in a bid to evade detection. “The infraction by the vessel contravenes the International Ships and Port Security Code (ISPS) and she was tagged a “Vessel of Interest” (VoI) by the Nigerian Navy.
The NN Maritime Domain Awareness infrastructure observed the criminal intent of the vessel and subsequently vectored two NN ships on patrol to interrogate the vessel and it was discovered that MT SWEET MIRI was involved in illegalities and the vessel was subsequently arrested”, it said. “Curiously, the suspicious disposition of the vessel necessitated the swift deployment of Nigerian Navy Ship ABA and Nigerian Navy Ship SOKOTO to intercept the vessel. Notably, upon arrest, MT SWEET MIRI was found carrying about two million litres of product suspected to be crude oil without any form of approval from relevant authorities,” it stated. The statement further affirmed that in line with the directive of the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, for an in-depth and independent investigation, relevant approving/prosecuting agencies were notified for sample collection and to further ascertain the culpability or otherwise of the vessel.
