Pipeline Surveillance Contract: Tompolo replies critics

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Post created on 4:05 pm

 

 

The former leader of the defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, despite having been declared wanted by the Joint Task Force in 2009 for the fortuitous killing of some soldiers and again in 2015 by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over alleged conspiracy, illegal diversion of N34 billion, N11 billion, and N900 million belonging to the Nigerian Maritime Administration Security Agency, NIMASA, Tompolo has bounced back into public glare.

Last month, when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPC Limited, after security checks, awarded a multi-billion naira pipeline surveillance contract to five different companies, two of which he has an interest in the Niger Delta. They pay the companies per kilometer of pipeline based on performance. This irked some groups as some supposed militant factions threatened the Federal Government, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, and Chief Executive Officer, CEO, NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, over the contract to the said companies, but specifically, mentioned Tompolo.

NNPC Limited boss, Kyari, defended the deal, saying the need to involve “private contractors to man the right of way to these pipelines” informed the deal.

Bear in mind that, last year, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos found the allegations EFCC leveled against Tompolo to be fallacious, acquitted, and discharged him.

Ondo state governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN knocked the Federal Government on the contract, but his Delta state counterpart, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, who understood the real reason for the contract, commended the Federal Government and NNPC Limited for listening to his earlier call to award pipeline surveillance contracts to capable community stakeholders and contractors in the affected areas, including Tompolo. It was learnt that President Muhammadu Buhari was fully briefed and he gave his nod for the contracts.

Over the weekend, Tompolo was given an opportunity to respond to those protesting against him being among the few Niger-Delta indigenes awarded the surveillance contract.

two days after putting pen to paper with NNPC Limited, it was reported that he has been putting heads together, almost on  daily basis at Oporoza, traditional headquarters of Gbaramatu kingdom, in Warri South-West local government area of  Delta state. He has met with traditional rulers, community leaders, and stakeholders from across six states of Niger Delta on how to protect oil pipelines.

Below are excerpts of the interview he had with Vanguard newspaper:

We can handle it (the pipeline surveillance contract) perfectly, if you look at our environment, our people’s means of survival is fishing, but while people are doing this illegal bunkering, there is no more work for them because it has affected the fishing. Therefore, they have no means of livelihood and our people want their means of livelihood back. Even in federal and state governments, only a few people from our fishing communities have employment, so when you see people coming from outside the country, taking away something from your place, what our people now do is to help them, assist them in the bunkering.

The people getting the bulk of the money are not our people and while doing that, the level of damage they cause to the ecological life of our people is massive, and that is what we are trying to stop. So, we will talk to our people and sensitize them that if you are getting one naira today, the damage it will cost tomorrow is up to N30; that is the area I will now follow to talk to my people and in the end, we will agree and they will leave oil bunkering. We expect the federal government will provide the needful so that our people will survive because we own the oil and our people must be part of the parcel of the wealth, not that people will come from other parts of the country to take our wealth.

 

Protests against the contract award

Like when people are talking about pipeline protection, and they are doing protests in Port – Harcourt, Lagos, and Abuja, I am amazed. Take the contract that I have now, before now, my late friend, Captain Hosa Okunbo, who was from Edo state, was doing the work for the last four to five years; my younger brother who is a king in Niger Delta today was working with Captain Hosa as his operations manager. Now he has his own contract, then Ben Peters and others are still doing this work, if people are coming to protest that I am part of the contract, I wonder what really is happening.

What I know is that some people are passing behind to sponsor my people against me. If not, there are many contractors on this surveillance job, we are maybe up to four, then calling only Tompolo’s name that we do not want Tompolo, that Tompolo is based in Oporoza and all that, you can now see that if you want to fight corruption, it will fight back.

I can tell you many big names are involved in oil bunkering, they know that if I am involved, working together with the Nigerian Navy, JTF, DSS, EFCC, many people will not have any place to hide again. Therefore, they passed the other way round to sponsor some of my people against me.

I have been fighting all these up till today because I know I am fighting the right cause; I do not have any reason to fear anybody, why should I fear somebody that is carrying maybe two, or three guns protesting in Rivers state?

 

Reaching out to other former ex-militant leaders of Ijaw extraction

Before the protest even, I had spoken to my senior brother, Alhaji Dokubo-Asari and Ateke Tom , we spoke on phone and we promised to meet before even this protest. I do not really think they can be involved in such a thing, but we are even having a meeting here tomorrow (last Wednesday). Clearly, I know that even if I secure a contract in Rivers state, Alhaji Dokubo Asari and Ateke Tom do not have the right to stop me.

In fact, while I was here in Delta state, the late Captain Hosa Okunbo’s company had been working here for the past four years; I did not call him to abuse him on the phone, not to talk of protest. So I do not see any reason people should call me out in Rivers state over pipeline security work.

It is just that when this present government came on board, many people felt that this would be the end of Tompolo, but in the end, after seven years, the whole thing turned around, and that is the fear of many people.

When my brothers, Dokubo-Asari and Ateke Tom come, I will explain to them so that they can also help me explain to others the truth about what we should do to save the environment of the region. If I were to be like other contractors, I am not the only contractor, but if you observe, as soon as I signed the contract, after two days, I invited everybody, cult groups, bunkering groups, and community stakeholders from across the states of the region to discuss how we are going to do the work. If you look very well, no contractor has done what I did in the past five to six years.

When you look at the whole thing critically, I think you would know where the smoke you are seeing is coming from, but in things like this, we always expect situations like this, but we manage them along the line. There is no cause for alarm; it is something I can handle by the grace of God.

One, we have to clear our area because if people are working to get N20, the damage, and the aftermath effect is much on our people. That is my concern, not only for me but for many of our people. Many people do not even understand the environmental hazard of cooking this crude oil in this environment.

I think we have many people, traditional rulers, and opinion leaders on our side and we will talk to the people because we are fighting to protect our region. However, if you destroy the economic life of the place, where are you going to protect tomorrow?

 

The Niger Delta struggle

You know that oil pipeline protection is not part of the Niger Delta struggle; I want to clarify that. When we were struggling we were not struggling for people to do oil bunkering, and  you know all that. Our struggle is resource control and even as we are speaking now, Papa Edwin Clark and every other person is talking about restructuring the country, people are discussing all that.

What I was saying before is if we are fighting for survival, we will not allow our struggle to bring in things that are not part of the struggle. Cooking oil in all these places is not part of our struggle. If one person builds one house with the proceeds, it will destroy so many people with cancer and other different sicknesses that they do not have an answer.

So, the Niger Delta struggle continues. That was the more reason when we had this issue with the NDDC; we invited our senior brother, former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and told him to announce the governing board so that they can work.

Cooking black oil here and there is not part of our struggle; we are not even in the struggle alone; we have part of Igbo people in this struggle, Isoko, Urhobo, and many people in this struggle with us. Pipeline protection is not part of the struggle, what we are doing is to secure our environment, which is in terrible shape.

That is the more reason we are inviting people; traditional rulers, and everybody to tell them what is going on. When they leave here, they will sensitize our people. I told you before that I invited people from across the region, over 10,000 youths were here and I have told them that the way we are going is to stop oil bunkering so that our struggle will have focus, and we can achieve our aim.

If you do not have the oil running, how do you get your resource control? That is what we are doing. When we went to Lagos to stop oil bunkering, we chased some of the oil bunkering vessels as far as the United States of America. The report and paper works they are working with, in this present government, were all our own arrangements, which we brought in. For example, that so and so the amount of crude oil stolen from Nigeria is in so and so port in the USA, and that port in Germany. That was how we actually handled this security job. We are doing all these to save the place called Nigeria, our own country.

While we are doing all that, we will also tell them we want our fair share, you know if you have an oil bunkering camp and somebody have a marginal oil field or an oil block, can you compare the two together? So if we do not stop our people from doing these illegal activities, the people will capitalize on it, they will say we do not know these people for a good thing, and they will now use our people to do the illegal part. The bottom line is that we want to do what is right and get our fair share.

Well, since the interview, the masked militants from Rivers State, who raised hell over the pipeline surveillance contract the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, awarded to a former leader of the defunct Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo,  have simmered down after speaking with the ex-militant leader on the phone.

Yesterday, that the aggrieved militants, who threatened the Federal Government; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources,  Timipre Sylva, and NNPCL Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Mele Kyari, agreed to cooperate with Tompolo on grounds that he protects their interest in the project.

This came as stakeholders from Urhobo host communities to Trans-Forcados Pipeline, TFP, in Delta State, have asked the Federal Government and NNPCL to review and award the pipeline surveillance on Urhobo section of TFP to any competent Urhobo indigene.

Meanwhile, Coalition of Niger Deltans, CND, has condemned Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State over his remarks on surveillance contract awarded to a firm owned by Tompolo.

Also, Edo Dynasty United Organisation Worldwide, EDUO, has written Tompolo, NNPCL, and others on the need to partner Edo people at this point in the execution of the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Tompolo.