By Zik Gbemre
The Ex-Militant Leader and Chairman, Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd, Chief Government Ekpemukpolo, alias Tompolo has no moral justification to engage in the recent blame game he sparked on the fight against intractable oil theft in Nigeria.
While the Nigeria military’s deep involvement in oil theft is an open secret already over flogged in the public domain, Tompolo must stop the attempt to play the saint to curry public sympathy and paint every other stakeholder bad just to hold on to the partisan oil assets surveillance contract awarded to appease him.
The Defense Headquarters can no longer live in denial of the military’s deep involvement in oil theft. They aid and abet or directly engaged in the money spinning economic sabotage.
Oil theft thriving business in Nigeria is an organised crime that involves collusion by critical stakeholders including the IOCs, indegenous oil companies,militant leaders, security agencies, industry regulators, especially NNPCL, host community players, power brokers in government and contractors who fix & weld vandalised assets and engage in spill clean-ups & remediation contracts.
This is already an open secret. Tompolo isn’t the first person to raise allegations. As governor of Rivers state, Chief Nyesom Wike fearlessly mentioned names of security personal and service commanders directly sponsoring oil theft under his domain at the time when he was governor of River state.
So if at the close of 2024, Tompolo is still accusing faceless Navy and faceless power brokers in Lagos and Abuja he is stepping on their toes of working against his surveillance contract, he is not only telling half truth, but engaging in distraction from the thinking that his Tantita is part of the conspiracy to continuously shield the big players in the oil theft.
Tompolo is diverting attention from the pertinent questions over the credibility and justification for his multi-billion naira surveillance contracts between Tantita and the NNPCL which pays for the contracts.
Among the many questions begging for answers, NNPCL’s Mele Kyari and Tompolo should explain to Nigerians why with Amnesty, the Niger Delta still needs surveillance contracts of bloated sums to free the operating environment of oil theft.
At the peak of their self serving militancy, their bloody armed struggle against the Nigerian state, oil theft and assets vandalism sustained the destructive violence Tompolo, Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, Boyloaf and contemporaries carried out in the Niger Delta, much more than the kidnapping of expatriates for ransoms.
After chasing all operators away, these militant leaders enjoyed unhindered access to the oil fields and flow-lines. They traded the stolen crude oil for dollars which gave them instant wealth, some they exchanged in barter for arms to sustain their armed struggle. At other times they destroyed oil assets to induce huge repairs contracts for favoured contractors who were positioned to benefit.
So if Amnesty was given to Tompolo, Dokubo contemporaries and their gangs to desist from oil theft and assets vandalism, why is oil theft growing worse and it is among suspected perpetrators that federal government through NNPCL issues contracts to guard the oil assets?
Isn’t that double standard? For us, Kyari’s surveillance contracts to Tompolo and co is a case of giving the item to the thief to watch over so if it gets lost, he can be called to question.
Assuming the contracts were justified, what pedigree, what exclusive industry experience or expertise in security qualified Tompolo to win his preferential surveillance contract, other than that he has been involved and has been a big beneficiary of the economic sabotage ?
We maintain that Tantita is not in any sincere fight against oil theft. It is a tool for cover up, a conspiracy to shield the big Abuja and Lagos players engaged in the high profile oil theft. Tantita’s hyped achievements, in discoveries of tapping points and seizure of rogue vessels are all stage managed to give false impression of genuine fight against oil theft.
There is nothing Tantita has done that the Army of occupation in the operating space have not done before, arresting vessels, discovering tapping points and destroying illegal refineries. Across the operating space, these illegal refineries are still widespread. Who is feeding them the crude oil to produce local diesel in the bushes around oil & gas assets?
With the Army of occupation in the operating space having lost the trust of government due to deep involvement in the crime they were engaged to fight, Tantita was Kyari’s creation to buy sympathy. They are merely telling the people what they want to hear.
The notion of Tantita efforts pushing crude oil production to 1.8mbpd is sheer propaganda. NNPCL and Kyari do not have an honest figure of Nigeria’s daily production because experts have confirmed time without number that the oil theft happening at the terminal under the watch of the operators and the regulators surpasses what is being taken by those breaking into the lines.
We, NDPC have been in monitoring and evaluation long enough to speak with authority on the matter. Tantita is as guilty as the colluding military, reason they are scoring same guided results as the military.
Like the failed military, Tantita is created to shield the big oil thieves. That’s why in all the hyping, beyond arresting ‘arrangee’ vessels and uncovering theft points, only the foot soldiers are scapegoated. The real sponsors are never exposed to suffer the wrath of the law. With no deterrent, the stealing continues.
When Tantita uncovered the hyped Trans Forcados theft point, Kyari said, “First, the attachments on our Trans- Forcados/Ramos pipeline, which are illegal connections, were professionally done.
“And the result is that they connected it to an inner case line which will never carry crude oil under normal circumstances and we have seen that this line flows all the way parallel with the other two active lines into the Forcados platform.”
That was Kyari tacitly accepting that the real oil thieves are within the corridors of power and NNPCL. Kyari and security agencies also vowed to ensure all suspects linked to that incident would be fished out and punished within the law. Till date has anyone been exposed or punished? The matter has been swept under the rug.
So Tompolo should stop blaming our sensibility with his ‘holier than thou’ allegations. If he expects the public to take his allegations serious, he should also expect us to take serious, the US protesters who accused him of killing his kinsmen who are exposing his alleged atrocities in the Niger Delta.
The duplication of oil assets security contractors in the operating space is creating more setbacks than good. If President Tinubu has lost confidence in the Navy and JTF occupation of the area, he should evict them and let Tompolo take charge and engaged private outfits take full charge.
If they are to work together, let there be proper definition of functions and boundaries. They said Tantita was to provide only intelligence, but anyone monitoring their operations knows they go about with arms which is provoking the abuse of power Tompolo’s kinsmen alleged in the US protest.
Tompolo, siblings and Gbaramatu folks should enjoy the windfall from the partisan surveillance contract quietly. He should not blame and abuse the public with his cheap allegations. He and Kyari should tell us what we don’t know, not what we already know.
The mind game among Tompolo, NNPCL-Mele Kyari and the military is amusing. Few months ago Tompolo built a Transit House in Effurun Barracks (former David Ejoor Barracks).
We also hear Tompolo is building more Transit houses for the military. Who are they deceiving?
Tompolo accuses the military of compromising fight against oil theft and same time building them military transit houses in Delta state.
Zik Gbemre
January 7,2025
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