Members of the Northern Youth Advocacy for Good Governance Initiative and the Arewa Youth Forum staged a protest on Monday at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited headquarters in Abuja. 

They voiced their demands for the Federal Government not to renew a pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Tantita Security, owned by Mr. Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo.

Protestors held placards with messages such as ‘Tompolo’s Pipeline Surveillance Is a Fraud,’ ‘President Tinubu, Please Save Nigeria from these Jackals,’ and ‘Suspend and Probe NNPC Menchmen.’

Comrade Musa Adebayo, President of the Arewa Youth Congress, and Comrade Usman Saidu, President of the Northern Youth Advocacy for Good Governance Initiative, co-signed a statement expressing their concerns.

They highlighted that there had been no significant increase in oil production since the contract was awarded to Tompolo, stating, “The successes being celebrated are normal production rates before the mayhem of the Niger Delta Avengers.”

Adebayo expressed unease regarding the efforts to re-award the contract to Tompolo, an ex-militant general, emphasizing the contract’s tension, financial irregularities, disinformation, and abnormalities.

The protestors also called for the suspension and investigation of several NNPCL executives involved in contracts related to the security and maintenance of pipeline infrastructure, which they claimed had cost the federal government nearly one billion dollars in the past year.

Adebayo stressed that the country could not afford actions that might lead to internal turmoil and further controversy among its citizens, adding that awarding contracts to someone “who should ordinarily be behind bars for the economic mayhem caused in the Niger Delta region between 2016 and 2018 is total anti-peace and anti-development.”

He asserted that the protestors would continue to occupy the NNPCL premises until their demands were addressed.