Nation
N/Delta militants threaten action over pipeline contracts
By AYOOLA OLAOLUWA
The feverish jostling among ex-Niger Delta militants and warlords for a piece of the pipelines protection contracts may further push Nigeria’s already struggling economy into the abyss, Business Hallmark can report.
According to findings, aggrieved ex-militants in the restive Niger Delta, who felt cheated in the sharing of the lucrative petroleum pipelines protection contracts are considering several options to force the Federal Government to include them in the deal.
Some of the options being considered, our correspondent learnt, include the resumption of hostilities in the volatile Niger Delta region, and the bombing of crude oil and refined petroleum carrying pipelines that criss cross the swamps and creeks of the Niger Delta.
It would be recalled that Nigeria had in the last five years experienced a sharp drop in revenue generation owing to the sabotage of her oil installations scattered across the country, especially pipelines conveying both crude oil and refined petroleum products to oil terminals and depots.
For instance Nigeria’s crude oil output dropped to an all-time low of 972,394 barrels per day (bpd) in August 2022, a far cry from the 1.8 million barrels per day production quota set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
According to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigeria’s oil production averaged 1.18 million barrels per day for the month August 2022 despite the addition of condensate.
The shortfall adversely affected the nation’s earnings, which comes mostly from crude oil export, resulting in a significant drop in monthly allocation to the federation account.
It also forced the three tiers of governments to recourse to heavy borrowings to argument their budgets.
Troubled by the menace of pipelines vandalism and oil theft, the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari did the unthinkable, when he bypassed the nation’s security agencies to award contracts for the protection of the pipelines to companies and entities owned by repentant ex-militants.
However, contrary to widely held belief that the contract is being executed only by one company, Tantita Security Services Limited, owned by a former Niger Delta militant, Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo, BH findings revealed that it was shared between many private security outfits.
While smaller and relatively unknown outfits guard pipelines transporting refined petroleum products like petrol and kerosene, two firms, namely Tantita Security Services Limited and Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd (PINL) are saddled with the task of keeping crude oil bearing pipelines safe from oil thieves.
A source in NNPCL, who spoke to BH on the condition of anonymity, said that while Tompolo’s Tantita got the contract to protect oil pipelines on the sea and creeks of Lagos and Ondo in the South West, Imo and Abia in the South East and Edo and Delta States in the South South regions, Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd secured the contract to protect pipelines that traversed the waters and creeks of Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Cross River.
The decision was critised by many security experts, who argued that it was like given meats to cats to watch over.
Despite the initial doubts and criticisms that trailed the Federal Government’s unorthodox decision to hand over the pipelines to ex-militants to protect appeared to be achieving results. The arrangement, findings revealed, has worked wonders, as Nigeria has considerable ramped up crude oil export.
Latest figures obtained from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory (NUPRC) at the weekend showed that the country’s output in September was 1.35 million barrels per day, about 14 per cent higher than what it pumped in the preceding month of August 2023.
According to NUPRC, the figure is the highest volume of crude oil pumped so far since January 2023.
Speaking in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Thursday, October 19, 2023, Bayelsa State governor, Duoye Diri, attested to the incredible feats achieved by the pipelines protection contractors.
According to the governor, the introduction of pipeline surveillance by the Federal Government as a strategy to end pipeline vandalism and oil theft has helped to boost the economy of state governments in the country, especially that of Bayelsa.
He stated that with the help of pipeline surveillance contractors like Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd, the menace of oil theft and illegal bunkering, which threatened Nigeria’s economy has drastically reduced, with crude oil delivery through pipelines rising from the almost three percent to above 90 per cent.
“I want to thank the Federal Government for the initiative of engaging pipeline surveillance contractors, such as Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd PINL, which is presently in Bayelsa State.
“Before now, pipeline vandalism was like a daily occurrence. Today it’s here, tomorrow it’s another place. But they came and engaged the community. They spoke with government and first they enlightened the people about the consequences of pipeline vandalism and oil theft.
“Pipeline vandalism is now almost a thing of the past in Bayelsa. I can tell you that unlike in the past, where oil terminals hardly receive three percent of oil pumped from flow stations through the pipelines, the recovery rate is now over 90 percent”, Governor Diri stated.
BH also observed that the 3-tiers of governments have been getting more revenue from the federation account as a result of more improved oil sales.
However, the expected economic recovery on the back of improved sales and earnings from crude oil is currently being threatened by the disagreement among stakeholders in the Niger Delta over the alleged lopsided sharing of pipeline security contracts.
Though, aggrieved stakeholders from the Niger Delta have been fighting their exclusion from the contract deal immediately it became public knowledge in August 2022, the rate of agitation against their being left out has intensified.
On Thursday, October 19, Niger Delta ex-militants in Ondo State demanded the decentralization of pipelines surveillance contracts. While speaking at a news conference in Abuja, the ex-militants urged President Bola Tinubu to decentralize the contracts and allow their colleagues in each of the nine Niger Delta states to secure the pipelines.
Leader of the Niger Delta Coastal Vanguard, General Job Omotuwa, who was flanked by Chief Ajiroba Lucky (Sustain), Ariyo Adeolu and Joseph Olamide Elias Esq. said the president ought not to award the same contracts to the same people.
“We won’t allow our rights to be given to another person from another state. We are operating in the coastline, that is, high seas. Other states operate in the creeks. We know the terrain better than any other group from outside the state.
“Oil spillage affects our people, who are largely fishermen. Our fishes are being killed. This is why we have on our own been fighting bunkerers.
“Decentralize pipelines surveillance contracts. Let people from Delta provide security in their state. Let Ondo people do same and ditto for all the other Niger Delta states.
“The NDCV is familiar with the terrain for effective and efficient output. We shall not allow or accept any deliberate attempt by government or agent of government to impose someone from another region, who does not belong to our ethnic nationality on us to sustain the existing peace in the region”, the group warned.
In the same vein, a coalition of ex-militants from the six states of the Niger Delta region under the aegis of the Supreme Egbesu Freedom Fighters of Niger Delta (SEFFND), called for the splitting of the contract to accommodate other foremost militant leaders like Mujahid Asari Dokubo.
The SEFFND, in a statement signed by its General, Agadagba 1, also known as the River-Don, said that it is unfair for a group to have total control over the N48 billion pipeline surveillance contract, whereas the likes of Asari-Dokubo who worked hard for election of the President Bola Tinubu, and can do the job even far better than what they have currently achieved in the region, are left in the cold.
Also, the Coalition of Isoko Youth Groups and Ex-Agitators criticised the Federal Government for not awarding Isoko youths a contract for pipeline surveillance in the Niger Delta.
The coalition asked the president to award them a contract to provide surveillance for pipelines as already done for some other groups.
Conveners of the group, Mr. Iteveh Nur’ Ekpokpobe and Mr. Karo Edor, in a statement made available to BH in Lagos, stressed that although the previous contract was awarded after a series of considerations, it became obvious to the government that it was awarded with limited information available to it at the time.
It, therefore, appealed to President Tinubu to implement the Senate’s recommendation for Isoko Youths to be separately engaged by the Federal Government in the pipeline surveillance contract.
Some stakeholders in the Niger Delta, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, warned the government to quickly douse the tension generated by the award and recent renewal of the N48 billion worth of pipelines protection contracts by another three years.
According to them, some aggrieved ex-militants are contemplating the option of sabotaging the pipelines in order to gain government’s attention.
“We have intelligence reports that some aggrieved stakeholders in the Niger Delta are planning to sabotage major pipelines in the region to prove a point that Tompolo is not invisible, as well as getting the attention of the government to their demands.
“I think government should not wait for this to happen. While it is no longer possible to retrieve the contract from him (Tompolo), they can lean on him to sub contract pipelines that pass through the states to locals in those areas.
“By so doing, the brewing crisis will be averted as every stakeholder will have a sense of duty and commitment”, declared one of the sources.
Speaking on the development. the President, Ijaw National Congress (INC), Prof. Benjamin Okaba, dismissed the grumblings and threats by some agitators, saying they were being influenced by oil thieves to scuttle the pipeline surveillance contract.
According to Okaba, rivalry should be expected in a multi-dimensional society, but it should not be allowed to degenerate into destructive envy.
“Yes, you must expect rivalry, it is part of development. People must definitely contest, but let the competition be healthy.
“If you do a safety comparison of these pipelines before the contracts were awarded to Tompolo and now, you will see a massive difference.
“Tantita is not just about Tompolo, he has over 40,000 youths working for him, even among Isoko and Itsekiri people. It’s not about Ijaws alone.
“When you see people coming out to say, ‘give it to us’, it is because Tompolo is doing things differently and because he is doing the right thing.
“He has sabotaged the efforts of these criminals, so there is a gang-up. Just imagine Arewa Youths saying Tompolo should not be given the contract, what did they know about pipeline surveillance?
“These are people sponsored by some internal agencies, who also feel that Tantita is fighting the economic sabotage that they have inflicted on the country for so long”, he argued.
