Simon Ebegbulem
One of the major drawback to Nigeria’s prosperity in the 1990s was no doubt the problem of unrelenting disruption and sabotage of her crude oil production capacity.
From being one of the major players in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Africa’s most populated country had become but a fringe player in the crude oil supply chain business, to the detriment of her economy, a vast population of over 200 million people, not to speak of her overall rating among the Comity of Nations. Those were harrowing times, just as the future appeared even ever more bleak.
Notwithstanding the commendable efforts of officers and men of the Nigerian Navy, Army and Air Force, the personnel of paramilitary forces, including men and women of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), Vigilance groups and even local organizations, the problem grew in bounds and leaps, no thanks to the handiwork of highly committed saboteurs; local oil bunkerers and their international collaborators, whose activities was grinding and squeezing the country beyond limits.
It got so bad, to the extent all crude oil production facilities across the entire Niger Delta, and even others elsewhere around the country, could hardly muster 700,000 barrels in a day, a situation which spurned multiple negative impacts on Nigeria. And, gone forever appeared to be the halcyon days of the Alhaji Rilwan Lukmans, the Prof. Tam David West; eras Nigeria’s petroleum ministers sneezed and the entire world, including the US and Europe, catch cold. Back then, the country’s OPEC quota hovered between two (2) million barrels per day (BPD) and 2.8 million (BPD), and no less. Our country, of course, always delivered.
Then came in High Chief Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo’s Tantita security outfit to the rescue.
Haven defied all solutions and with the problem becoming more intractable by the hour, some notable and patriotic Nigerians, including Tompolo, experts in the field/area of security/protection of Crude Oil Assets, onshore and offshore; with their deep understanding and first hand knowledge of the terrains, made their commitment to salvage the situation, as to return Nigeria back to its rightful position among crude oil producing and exporting countries of the world. By this time, countries like Angola in Southern Africa and even neighbouring Ghana, who were nowhere near the board when Nigeria was already a big time player in the industry, were already thumping us at the game!
No sooner tremendous success began to be chalked up, and based on the Tantita ethic, focus and total dedication on the mandate given them to protect and safeguard Nigeria’s oil assets and facilities, particularly in the Niger Delta areas, than the activists; agents of retrogression and naysayers began to kick. But, in vain they kicked, hence their ceaseless efforts to deshine and demarket Tompolo’s Tantita. Nigerians know better and will not fall for unholy measures that bode ill for our dear country and her good people. Rather than appreciate the good works of this great son of the Niger Delta, instead, mischief makers seek to prey on the business mogul and protector of some of our nation’s most valuable Crude Oil assets in the Niger Delta region.
Touch not the anointed, but alas, they will not listen; frivolities and the most bizarre of enterprise being their calling. Therefore, they will not seek to highlight on how Tompolo’s security outfit, Tantita, has led to the resurgence of Crude Oil output in Nigeria, from below an abysmal and shameful low of less than 700,000 (BPD) in the not too far past, as earlier indicated, to the over 2.5 million (BPD) presently, thereby breathing life back into our economy, as well as contributing towards the Federal Government’s efforts and obligations in meeting the need of our citizens and other external commitments/obligations.
Elsewhere, there are those, being averred enemies of the government presently in power, that is the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), that are ever willing to spite their own noses sake of the mouth, and will thereby always dream up scenarios of the abyss, chaos, strife or anarchy. While they fancy themselves as opposition, they are in reality vandals and destroyers, who seek not the good of Nigeria nor the peace of her people.
That the actions or inactions of people like High Chief Government Ekpemupolo aided in the then dominant Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) eventual hang on the oxygen gas mask for bare existence, and now nearing suffocation in the South South regional axis, is enough for them to go into early hypovolemic shock, and hence the blind rage in their system and actions, all shamelessly hinged and resulting in feeble and highly ineffectual ways of doing things.
Needless to mention it here that Tompolo’s support for the ideals of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR), and that his working assiduously towards peace in Rivers State, irks them to no end. Together with their band of anarchists and online vultures, who mean no good nor have anything better in offer for the larger percentage of Nigerians, High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, must be seen in very bad light.
My advice: let them seek progress and peace, do their homework more properly, and then will they come to terms that High Chief Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo) thinks, dreams and breathe Nigeria; her welfare, progress, development and prosperity.
Ebegbulem, a veteran journalist writes from Owerri.