The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has halted the activities of some villagers suspected to be fuel suppliers to bandits around Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State.

The agency further warned filling stations in the state against supplying petroleum products to bandits.

The Controller, Gusau DPR Field office, Alhaji Ango Haruna gave the warning on Wednesday in Kaura-Namoda while on surveillance of filling stations.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the department also sealed one Liquified Petroleum Gas Refilling Plant in Gusau over some infractions.

The controller said, “today, we intercepted some black maketers conveying jerricans loaded will petroleum products in Kaura-Namoda.

“You know it is a tradition in Zamfara that some unpatriotic citizens supply petroleum products to bandits in the bush.

“As you can see, we met four persons at a filling station conveying the product in jerricans going to nearby villages.

“Even though they told us that they are going to some villages where there is no filling station, but we didn’t believe them.

“We won’t allow them to go with the products, we asked them to return the product to the station.

“I am using this medium to warn filling station managers to desist from selling the product to those unpatriotic citizens and if we catch anyone doing that he will be sanctioned.

“We cannot seal the station now because we don’t want to create artificial fuel scarcity in this area, because we learnt that it is the only station selling the product here in Kaura-Namoda today”, he explained.

On the LPG Refilling Plant sealed by the department in Gusau, the Controller said the plant was using expired gas cylinders and had no safety equipment.

“As you can see all the gas cylinders in this plant are expired, water system is not working, in fact the plant manager cannot even present a copy of their licence to us.

“The environment of the plant is very bushy and if a customer comes while buying LPG mistakenly throw away a lighted cigarette butt in this area. we wont know what will happen.

“Therefore, we have to suspend them from operation until when they meet up the minimum safety requirement to operate”, he added.

The Controller said that the department would continue the inspection of all facilities selling cooking gas and other to ensure compliance with safety and other regulations