It is perhaps inevitable that the recent award by the Federal Government, of a contract worth N48 billion annually to former Niger Delta militant, Government Ekpemupolo a.k.a. Tompolo, for the surveillance and protection of the country’s oil pipelines in the region to check the current massive stealing of the country’s crude oil with humongous loss of revenues would generate the ongoing controversy. The government is understandably alarmed that over 400,000 barrels of crude oil is reportedly stolen daily, resulting in a loss of about $40 million daily at a time of grave challenges such as pervasive poverty, infrastructure deficit, energy crisis and crippling insecurity, among others.
Some have expressed the view that this is a move in the right direction as Tompolo, given his antecedents, knows the terrain well and will be able to mobilise local support to protect the pipelines in the various communities. However, a group known as the Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups (AAYG) drawn from across the northern states has protested against the contract award, accusing the government of favouritism to the Niger Delta while some other ex-militant leaders from the Niger Delta have also kicked against Tompolo being the sole beneficiary of the contract, and insisting on being carried along too. This raises question of if transparency and due process were adhered to in awarding the contract.
Incidentally, when the President Goodluck Jonathan administration awarded a similar pipeline surveillance contract to the same Tompolo as well as a leader of the Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC), Gani Adams, it had elicited widespread criticism from many who believed that it was a severe indictment of the security agencies that could not effectively carry out their constitutional obligation of protecting such critical national assets, as well as an abdication by the state of what should be its key security responsibility, to private individuals.
Ironically, the then leading opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), had also at the time vehemently criticised the contract award and which it promptly revoked when it came to power in 2015. That oil theft has worsened under its watch, forcing the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to resort again to the privatisation of pipeline surveillance and protection, and even to the same Tompolo, shows that it has failed like the preceding government to get the security agencies to deliver on their critical mandate in this regard.
It is not impossible that this initiative may succeed to some extent in improving on the protection of oil pipelines in communities with possible reduction of oil theft in many locations, but the problem has grown in such magnitude that the impact may ultimately be minimal. For instance, the arrest, this month, in Equatorial Guinea of a super oil tanker, MV Heroic Idun, loaded with three million barrels of stolen crude oil from Nigeria indicates that huge volumes of Nigeria’s oil are being stolen on the high seas in intricate operations involving a vast network beyond the local communities.
It is pertinent to wonder how the vessel gained access into Nigeria’s territorial waters, berthed, successfully loaded its illegal ware and departed our shores only to be apprehended in Equatorial Guinea. Where were men of the Nigerian Navy in all of this?
Surely, this incident must be thoroughly investigated and all found to have been derelict in their duties or complicit in the crime prosecuted and sanctioned as deterrence to others. It may also give useful insights into how the oil bunkering syndicates operate, thereby enabling more result-oriented actions taken to check the menace. It has been repeatedly alleged that the security agents deployed to guard these facilities are deeply involved themselves in the vast oil theft business which has become an avenue of wealth acquisition and something urgent and decisive must be done about this. Heads must inevitably roll if any breakthrough is to be made in checking oil theft.
There is no doubt that those to implement this private pipeline protection contract will be given the license to carry heavy arms if they are to succeed in executing their mandate. Will it then be fair to continue to deny the various anti-crime groups formed in different parts of the country to help combat such atrocities as banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism and terrorism the right to carry the requisite caliber of weapons to enhance their efficacy against well-armed lawless elements?
The Tompolo contract is another indication that the country’s current security architecture is outdated, ineffective and dysfunctional, and must be fundamentally reworked.