TheCable

Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has criticised the Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups for demanding the termination of Tompolo’s pipeline surveillance contract.

On Tuesday, the northern youths besieged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited in Abuja, to demand the termination of a multi-million dollar pipeline contract awarded to Government Ekpemupolo, better known as Tompolo.

Reacting to the development, Ken Robinson, the national publicity secretary of PANDEF, said the demonstration is “absurd, delusional and capable of causing severe consequences”.

PANDEF said Tompolo, like any other indigene of the Niger Delta region, has the right to be awarded a contract by the NNPC.

“PANDEF cautions that the reported threat by the so-called Amalgamated Arewa Youth Groups to paralyse activities at NNPC headquarters, if the said contract awarded to Government Ekpemupolo was not revoked is not only absurd and delusional but capable of sparking severe consequences in the Niger Delta region,” the statement reads.

“We are sending a serious warning to those misguided Arewa youths and their sponsors. Let it be known to them that the Niger Delta people will not tolerate such absurdity.

“Tompolo, and indeed any other capable Son or Daughter of the Niger Delta, for that matter, has the right to be awarded any contract by, any agency or company, of the Federal Government, more so the NNPC Limited, whose core operations are carried out mainly in the Niger Delta region.

“PANDEF notes that the Niger Delta region has continued to suffer marginalisation and isolation in critical sectors of the country, especially in the oil and gas sector.

“While our people are denied adequate participation in, both the management and operations, of the oil and gas industry, including the Ownership of Oil Blocks and Marginal Fields, the sad reality is that people from other parts of the country, some of who do not even know what crude oil looks like but for what they see in pictures, own the bulk of oil marginal fields and blocks.

“The composition of the board and management of the new NNPC Limited is another irksome matter; it is the same old narrative of inequity and lopsidedness. The south-south geopolitical zone that accounts for over 80 per cent of the nation’s crude oil production and which should be bonafide shareholders has only one member on the Board. 

“Meanwhile, oil and gas exploration activities have continued to degrade our hitherto luxuriant, healthy ecosystem, and ravage the indigenous people’s means of livelihood.

“Given such an unpleasant background in the Niger Delta, the reported protest by the said Arewa youths over the surveillance contract awarded to high chief Government Ekpemupolo is most insolent and annoying.”

In 2015, the NNPC renewed the pipeline protection contract it had awarded some ex-militants.

Tompolo and Asari Dokubo were among the beneficiaries of the contract.