Don’t Decentralise Pipeline Surveillance, Ondo Rep Tells Tinubu

Member representing the oil-rich Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Donald Kimikanboh Ojogo, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ignore calls for the decentralisation of the pipeline surveillance policy in the Niger Delta region.

The lawmaker warned that bowing to pressures from individuals who felt shut out from whatever arrangement in respect of the current policy would be a recipe for the creation of ethnic militias in the oil-rich region ahead of the 2027 elections.

In a statement issued yesterday in Abuja, the lawmaker described such calls for the decentralisation of the pipeline surveillance policy as aimed at creating a situation of distraction ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Lately, calls for the decentralisation of the current pipeline surveillance concession arrangement between the Federal Government and some privately owned security companies have reached a level of concern.

But Ojogo, an Ijaw leader and onetime Information Commissioner in Ondo State, highlighted the dangers of ignoring the capacity for emotion.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a huge responsibility to distil emotional imbalance, personal pains and defeated expectations from demonstrated capacity on the part of all such private pipeline security agencies that are currently delivering on their assigned mandates.

“It’s an incontrovertible fact that the Nation’s economy, which hinges on energy security in the Niger Delta through the Government-Private Partnership, has been of immense benefit to the Federal Government in terms of profound revenue generation. Undoubtedly, this Government-Private Partnership has made a great leap from daily crude production of an average of 800,000 barrels per day prior to the same arrangement to about 1.6 million barrels per day as it currently stands.

“The fact remains unquestioned that several eminently qualified private security experts and professionals engaged for this huge assignment are individuals and firms with deep knowledge of the oil-rich Niger Delta who have undertaken this intricate assignment to secure our national assets, especially the pipeline infrastructure.

“It’s also heartwarming that the Federal Government has, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and lately, through a former Chief of Defence Staff, appraised this arrangement with satisfaction. Both specifically singled out Tantita Security Services, among others, as having played significant and applaudable roles with the deployment of modern technology to tackle the menace of oil theft as well as environmental damage to our ecosystem. In clear terms, the calls for decentralisation must be hinged on the availability of requisite competence and capacity. Anything to the contrary is a move in the wrong direction.

“Consequently, these pressures and agitations, patently laced with envy and malice, have the potential of igniting inter-ethnic sentiments and hatred. Without any doubt, these sustained sentiments are already setting a pace for ethnic militia groupings in the Niger Delta ahead of the 2027 general elections.

And if these pecuniary agitations are not halted and properly handled, the Nation is on the verge of losing enormous revenue even as it has the potential of returning the Nation to the dark days of abysmal economic times as well as breeding insecurity in the region”, Ojogo said in the statement.