There was a mild drama at the presidential wing of the Murtala Muhammed airport on Friday as some Nigerian Airforce men attached to the lounge engaged some airport police men attached to the new terminal 2, under construction, in hot arguments for allegedly trying to collude with two cable thieves caught by the Airforce men.
Trouble started when a member of staff of a construction firm caught with one meter armoured cable and two short length of flexible cable, was trying to sell the cable to some suspected cable thieves.
The culprits had allegedly told the Airforce men that they were searching for scraps only to appear with a different item discovered to be cables.
Luck ran out of the culprits and the worker, when the Airmen manning the entrance of the presidential lounge caught them while trying to escape with the cables.
On sighting the Airmen, the worker took to his heels and the culprits were arrested by the Airforce men.
During interrogation, the policemen attached to the construction site tried to release the culprits, a situation which almost led to an open confrontation between the policemen and Airforce men who insisted that the culprits should not be taken away.
The situation deteriorated when the culprits disclosed that one of the policemen, (name withheld) had allegedly collected a bribe from them, a situation which made the Airmen to go in search of him (the policeman).
Cable theft has become a re-occurring at the MMA.
Recently, some criminals stole a large quantity of cables at the international wing of the airport, which threw the airport into darkness.
When contacted, the police public relations officer at the airport, Frank Mba, confirmed the incident and gave the name of the construction worker simply as, Sunday.
He denied the alleged bribe from the culprits. �The money was recovered from the culprits while we were searching for exhibit.
�The search was conducted to ensure that the culprit did not possess any incriminating items. So, the money was not actually extorted as alleged.
�We hope that the men of the Nigeria Airforce will hand over the culprits to us as soon as they finish with their preliminary investigations,� he added.