By Ignatius Chukwu
Every month, the FG pays out $50m to protect pipelines through a surveillance contract.
This job goes to Tantita Security Services Limited from Delta State, but other ex-warlords say they want a piece of the cake.
Details:
Despite the successful renewal of the pipeline surveillance contract worth $50m per month to Tantita Security Services Limited, ex-militants are believed to have continued to hold meetings in some parts of the oil region to press for decentralization.
Many have continued to condemn what they called concentration when the Muhammadu Buhari administration in its concluding years awarded the contract to Tantita owned by a former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo.
Now, BusinessDay gathered that Alhaji Asari Dokubo, a former warlord who says he is into security services also, and who has openly taken up physical battle to defend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Abuja, has attended a meeting in Okochiri in Okrikia, Rivers State to press for decentralization.
He was said to have met with the king of Okochiri, his onetime rival and now monarch, King Ateke Tom.
According to the source, the ex-agitators believe that the pipeline surveillance job was more successful when it was shared state by state. Each set of ex-militants protected the length in their state.
The source said the leaders of the struggle in each of the states in 2012 got the contract by the Late President Umoru Musa Yar’adua and they seemed to know the familiar territories in their states.
The source gave example of Rivers State where Ateke Tom, Asari, Egberi Papa, and Farah Dagogo allegedly worked in unity.
It was believed that the Okociri meeting was to react to the renewal of the contract and how they could be part of it under decentralization or even now.
They were said to have spoken vehemently against awarding it to one person. Many argued that Ijaw people are highly segmented and each segment acted alone. They act better that way, another source added.
From faraway Akwa-Ibom State, a stakeholder in the struggle named as Ofon Ette (alias General) criticized Tompolo for not carrying other fighters such as those from Akwa Ibom, Edo, Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River, Imo, etc along in the scheme of things.
He said in the year under review, there have been complaints from critical stakeholders in the struggle from these states. “While I commend the federal government who are now abreast with the fact that they lack the strength to manage the security of our pipelines, and consequently gave it to Tompolo, and while I congratulate Tompolo for winning the contract, but I wish to state that he should know that he cannot do it alone. He must as a priority reach out to some of these leaders in each of the struggles across other states, instead of working with a few and applying the divide and rule tactics.
Twist:
What seemed to be a twist in the push however occurred when key ex-fighters were found to be absent at the Okochiri meeting. They were named as Farah Dagogo and Sobomabo Jackrich (Eberipapa), said to be two critical stakeholders of the Niger Delta struggle in Rivers State.
Their absence was said to have evoked suspicion that they may have joined Tantita (Tompolo), a prospect that may not augur well for the unity of front of the Rivers ‘big Four’.
Others that however responded to the call to Okochiri were named as Bibopiri Ajube, Victor Ben Ebikabowei, etc. The Rivers leaders were said to have worked together in the past.
A source said the meeting was convened to strategize ways to oversee the pipeline surveillance contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
It is not clear if Dokubo has used his deep relationship with Aso Rock to wrestle a subcontract from the deal.
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