Crude oil thieves in the Niger Delta creeks, who are not comfortable with surveillance activities of Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo have launched a strategy to weaken his resolve to deploy the zeal with which he agitated the emancipation of the Niger Delta during the militancy era in his new job.
The activities of the crude oil thieves
that are sabotaging the economic development of the country.
Part of the strategies they employ is bombarding him and his household with threat messages over the surveillance job he secured from the Federal Government. The saboteurs would continue to have his security outfit to contend with.
It could be recalled that Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, threw his weight behind the feat recorded by Tompolo within a few weeks after the contract was awarded to him and two others. Tompolo bowed that there would be no sacred cow in the discharge of the contract assignment, therefore disregarded dozens of threat messages from oil thieves and their sponsors.
Tompolo was reported showing concern about how Nigeria’s crude oil production could move to the quantum of two million barrels per day. He said the discovery of an illegal oil pipeline that was attached to the Forcados oil trunk and the burning of oil bunkering vessel on the region’s high sea, were testimonies of the riot act he read against oil thieves.
Tompolo spokesman, Catfish said, “I cannot say our Tantita Security Services Limited in the Creeks has not been getting steady threat alerts from suspected oil thieves, but no amount of threat and mudslinging would derail us from beaming searchlight on discoveries of illegal pipelines that were attached to the Forcados Terminal into the sea.”
He added, ”For threat messages, it is normal. Since illegal oil vessels were intercepted some weeks ago, the threat messages assumed a dangerous dimension.
Just yesterday (last week) here, they sent messages to threaten me, but we have remained unperturbed. It is something we can handle. “We are knowledgeable about the operation in the territorial waters of Nigeria and as a former militant, I clearly have the capacity to combat any possible attack from any illegal bunkerer with my men”, he said. He said Tompolo’s men have vowed to work day and night and in spirit and truth not to betray the Federal Government.
