A former Chairman of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Western Zone (Delta, Edo, and Ondo States), Comrade Eric Kpemi, has faulted calls for the decentralization of pipeline surveillance contracts in the Niger Delta, insisting that the current arrangement under Tantita Security Services Limited (TSSL), led by High Chief Government Ekpemupolo (popularly known as Tompolo), has brought unprecedented results.
Kpemi, in a counter-statement issued on Wednesday, dismissed as “false and suspiciously timed” the claims by the Southern Ijaw Unity Forum that the Tantita-led surveillance contract was failing.
According to him, the critics were silent when the contract was previously managed from Edo State by the late Captain Hosa Okunbo, even though several ethnic groups, including the Ijaw, Itsekiri, Urhobo, and Isoko, were excluded.
“Now that the contract is in the hands of an Ijaw son, who has proven beyond doubt his capability and patriotism, petitions are suddenly flying around and tribal sentiments are being stoked. This is not a fight for fairness—this is envy wrapped in activism,” he stated.
The ex-IYC chairman highlighted what he described as the “remarkable successes” of Tantita Security Services, including a boost in crude oil production, dismantling of illegal refineries across multiple states, exposure and shutdown of oil bunkering routes, and improved collaboration between security forces and local intelligence.
He noted that even international oil companies and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) had acknowledged these improvements.
Responding to calls for each ex-agitator to secure pipelines within their domain, Kpemi warned that such a move would plunge the region into “chaos, infighting, and lack of accountability.”
“The federal government needs one credible and coordinated structure, not 50 ex-militant warlords each doing their own thing. Decentralization will only return us to the failures of the past,” he argued.
Speaking to fellow Ijaw leaders, Kpemi cautioned against internal divisions.
“The contract has come to our zone and our people. If we begin to divide ourselves for personal gain, the same powerful interests who denied us for decades will smile and take it back,” he said.
While clarifying that he is not a beneficiary of Tantita’s operations, Kpemi stressed that the results were visible. “I see pipelines no longer being vandalized like before. I see crude oil production rising. Must we destroy what is working just because we are not part of it?”
Kpemi also urged Niger Delta stakeholders to explore other opportunities outside pipeline security, pointing to federal contracts in shoreline protection, modular refineries, gas flare-out projects, maritime security, and environmental cleanup.
“The fight against oil theft is not a tribal issue—it is a national priority. What we need is unity, not division. Progress, not petitions. And above all, performance, not propaganda,” Kpemi concluded.
