A Niger Delta group, the Kalabari National Assembly, says the recent award of a multi billion Naira pipeline security surveillance contract to Chief Government Ekpemopolo, alias Tompolo, cannot stand as it was done in bad faith.
The deal, the group says, excluded other genuine interest groups including the Kalabari people through whose domain the pipelines pass.
In a statement signed by
Engr. Dabotubo G. Agiobu and Comrade Tralapuye Gogo Abite, the group described the contract award as “unjust and another pathetic attempt made by the occupationist Nigerian state to foment conflict in the Niger Delta between Kalabari people and their Ijaw kith across other regions in the delta”.
The group was unequivocal that it opposes any attempt to award such a critical contract to a non-Kalabari contractor to secure pipelines and similar structures passing through their land.
“We want to assure the NNPC and their contractors that no oil pipeline within Kalabari land will be in the custodianship of an individual who is not a Kalabari son or daughter.
The Kalabari National Assembly, the statement stated, is preparing community youths, women and elders all across the affected Kalabari communities to resist and frustrate all attempts made by the NNPC’s chosen contractor to operate in Kalabari Kingdom.
The release said the Kalabari people have done it before not long ago and
are prepared to do it again.
“The advocates of the prestigious Kalabari National Assembly based at home and in the diaspora, being fully knowledgeable of the four billion naira per month oil pipeline surveillance contract awarded to five different companies, has resolved to staunchly object to and protest the exclusion, discrimination and side-lining of Kalabari indigenes from surveillance contracts in Kalabari land and the imposition of Non-Kalabari indigenes to infiltrate Kalabari territorial waterways and control the economic resources of Kalabari people.
“The Kalabari National Assembly views this unjust contract as another pathetic attempt made by the occupationist Nigerian state to foment conflict in the Niger Delta between Kalabari people and their Ijaw kith across other regions in the delta. We want to assure the NNPC and their contractors that no oil pipeline within Kalabari land will be in the custodianship of an individual who is not a Kalabari son or daughter as we are preparing our community youths, women and elders all across the affected Kalabari communities to resist and frustrate all attempts made by the NNPC’s chosen contractor to operate in Kalabari Kingdom. The Kalabari people have done it before not long ago, and we are prepared to do it again.
“Awarding surveillance contracts for oil pipelines within Kalabari Kingdom to Government Ekpemupolo’s (Tompolo) Global West company when there are already better qualified crucial stakeholders from Kalabari who had bid for the same contract as Tompolo is the highest level of disrespect, betrayal and deprivation towards Kalabari people on the part of the Nigerian minister of state petroleum, Mr Timipre Sylva who is an Ethnic-Ijaw, collaborating with the oppressive Nigerian state to dispossess our people of our wealth.”
The Kalabari National Assembly called on the NNPC and its contractor, Government Ekpemupolo of Global West Company to cede the protection of oil pipelines in Kalabari Kingdom to Kalabari indigenes only so as to avert unnecessary conflict and confusion in the Niger Delta resulting from the discriminatory, unfair and biased contract.
