Wonders will never end in Nigeria. With its back to the wall as oil theft mounts and the proceeds from the sale of crude which appears to be the sole purpose of postcolonial governance dwindles to nothing, the federal authorities have been forced to eat the humble pie. It has ceded the protection of oil facilities to a security outfit linked to a chieftain of the former Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo.

It is the time of the new oilmen of Obange, apologies to John Munonye, a great but unsung novelist. It is beginning to read like a ghoulish whodunit novel in Nigeria. We all know of the Executive Outcome, a band of hardened mercenaries procured to prop up the failing government of Sierra Leone in a time of crisis for the former colonial pearl.

But without war being formally declared, this is probably one of those rare occasions when a sitting government willing cedes part of its sovereignty to non-state actors. It must be a very concerning situation indeed. It is said in folk wisdom that only a thief knows how to trace the footprints of other thieves on the hard rock. One can therefore sympathize with the plight and anxiety of a beleaguered government.

It is known in international circuits that oil is the sweet coagulant binding the component parts of the lumbering and stumbling giant known as Nigeria together. Once proceeds from oil disappear, the postcolonial state loses its fundamental raison d’etre and Nigeria itself dissolves into an apocalyptic maelstrom. Surely something desperate has to be done to avert looming economic extinction and deregulated anomie.

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The immediate danger, however, is the obvious dizziness and disorientation creeping into governance. Nigeria will be lucky to have a transition without a major implosion as the Buhari administration reaches the final bend of the river. All people of goodwill must pray for this fate not to befall the country. It will be a bridge too far for this seething cornucopia of embattled nationals.

If our memory serves us right, it will be recalled that the selfsame Tompolo was a wanted man at the inception of the outgoing administration, hunted down, harried and harassed in the creeks and the snaky tributaries of the Niger Delta. But as government’s resolve to fight economic and political malfeasance weakened, the other Government has found his way back into limelight, after all what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

One can never be sure of the information at the disposal of the authorities. But when you pretend to solve a national problem by ignoring it, the multiplier effects come back to haunt you in the fullness of time. This is why the Tompolo pipeline contract has not met with universal applause or approval. There are simply too many nationalities and militant groups itching for a piece of the action.

There will be active sabotage and friendly firing which may lead to a renewal of hostilities among the armed militias in the restive region. In the face of a government with weakened resolve and a manifest lack of appetite for confrontation with the real saboteurs, oil prospecting in the Niger Delta may shudder to a terminal halt. The fate the federal authorities fear most may then overtake the nation.

It is instructive that Rotimi Akeredolu, the governor of Ondo State, has issued a damning disavowal of the whole deal and the imperial unitary arrogance behind it. According to the governor, if the federal authorities have shown a marked reluctance to approve firearm license for the Amotekun outfit which is designed to combat the grave security threat to an entire region, then it has no moral or political justification to grant license for military grade weaponry to Tompolo’s oil protection syndicate.

Accusing the federal government of “insincerity bordering ,deplorably ,on dubiety”, Akeredolu sums it up with characteristic gusto: “If state governments, which are keenly desirous of protecting their citizens, establish ancillary security outfits and there had been pronounced reluctance, if not outright refusal, to consider permitting them to bear arms for the sole purpose of defence, granting private individuals and or organisations unfettered access to assault weapons suggests, curiously, deep-seated suspicion and distrust between the federal government and the presumed federating units”.

This is perhaps the most trenchant critique from a sub-national unit of the misbegotten unitary federalism that has hobbled Nigeria since the collapse of the First Republic. It resonates and ricochets with unanswered aspects of the National Question. Coming from a state government that belongs to the ruling party, it is a damning indictment indeed. Tompolo may well be a symptom and the harbinger of stranger birds to follow. As Fela will put it, authorized stealing come jam authority stealing.