Govt terminates ethnic militia pipeline surveillance contract
THE Federal Government has terminated the pipeline surveillance and protection contract recently awarded to some ethnic militia by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
One of the beneficiaries of the pipeline job, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), which confirmed this in a statement yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Sylvester Eweka, said the Federal Government had also drafted armed military personnel to take over the security of the facilities from the operatives.
The take-over, according Eweka, had already led to a violent clash between operatives of the militia group and the police at the oil pipeline close to Sagamu, Ogun State, during which three of its personnel had been declared missing. According to the statement, those missing were Babatunde Adeyemi, Roland Ajayi and Orungbeja Dele-Osagie.
The men went missing after an armed military task-force attempted to forcefully eject them from their area of operation at the pipeline area. The statement said: “On Sunday, a lorry-load of task force members invaded the Sagamu area, claiming it had orders to forcefully reclaim control of the pipeline area.
“Irked by this unceremonious move, the private security operatives said they had no signal from their management to vacate the site.
“However, after the ensuing fracas, three men could not be accounted for by their team leaders. “Many of the security operatives fled the scene, amidst shooting by the task-force.
“The three men were part of the 4,000 private security operatives employed by New Age Global Business representing the OPC in the contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to provide security against criminals engaged in pipeline vandalism and petroleum products stealing.
“At the weekend, NNPC abruptly sent an SMS message terminating the pipeline security contract with effect from June 15, 2015.”
The Publicity Secretary, who said the OPC security outfits involved in the contract were being owed three months salary, further said: “We also demand that the NNPC immediately takes responsibility for the damages caused the group and ensure swift payment of all arrears.”
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5 Comments
NNPC is Nigeria,I pray that Nigerians will cooperate with the present Government to see to an end the present vandalization of oil pipelines.it a national malaise and embarrassment caused by wickedness,poverty and greed.God bless Nigeria.
Things should be done properly. What were the terms of the contract?
This was the case of impunity taken too far by the former administration. Thank God for the restoration of the normalcy. Never in our history should we encounter the kind of Jonathan administration again.
Who is leaving whom? This is like a chicken and egg story. Each
side seems to claiming they initiated the contract
termination, one because of unpaid money (of course) and the other because of…?
there was not reason to be hiring private security, when we had govt forces that could have done the job. the pipes are national investment and should be guarded like that. send in the army to guard it 24/7, fence off all the area long the pipelines and garrision the area. there is no reason why we should be having pipeline vandalism in 2015.
We will review and take appropriate action.