The youth council accused the Group Executive Director (Upstream) of the NNPC, Adokiye Tombomieye and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of playing an ethnic game and pushing the Isoko nation to the background.
The Isoko National Youth Council (INYC) in Delta state has raised the alarm over alleged marginalisation in the multi-billion-naira Niger Delta oil pipeline surveillance contract awarded to an ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemopolo (aka Tompolo), by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
The youth council accused the Group Executive Director (Upstream) of the NNPC, Adokiye Tombomieye and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of playing an ethnic game and pushing the Isoko nation to the background.
In a petition addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, signed by the President of the INYC, Matthew Edugbo through their counsel, Stanley Okonmah and Co., and obtained by SaharaReporters, the group urged the presidency to urgently investigate and prosecute those found culpable in the matter.
According to them, such actions will prevent any breakdown of law and order.
The group further noted that the NNPC management and the minister should know that the Isoko nation hosts 28 percent of the oil facilities that service the Nigerian economy, hence the NNPC must urgently reverse the contract to benefit the people of Isoko, most especially, as the duo of the NNPC Group Executive Director (Upstream), and the Minister are both of Ijaw extraction who allegedly decided to award the contract to their kinsmen.
The council frowned on the alleged total disregard and marginalisation of the people of Isoko in the process of awarding the contract, with that of the Isoko nation going to other persons. It warned against disrespecting and disregarding the contributions of the Isoko nation to the economy of the nation.
“As you are aware, sometime in August 2022, a contract for the surveillance of the oil pipeline in the entire Niger Delta Region, was awarded to one Mr. Government Ekpemukpolo, (Tompolo) an Ijaw man from Okorenkoko, in Niger Delta, without recourse to an Isoko representative, body or council. It should be noted that the combined efforts of the COO Upstream Mr. Adokiye Tombomieye and the Minister for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, who brokered the deal, as widely reported, are both Ijaw men from Rivers and the Bayelsa states.
"The said signed contract is riddled with signs of corruption, especially with the fact that the COO of the NNPC Upstream had been severally accused of corruption. In the same vein, their move to award the contract to their kinsmen reeks of corruption and pecuniary interests which is inimical to the development and probity of the Nigerian government. Adokiye had, before the contract was signed, promised the Isoko youths in his office that part of it would be given to Isoko youths, but it was now disheartening that he never kept his word.
"Mr. Adokiye Tombomieye has promised Isoko leaders in his office in Abuja, that he will give part of the surveillance contract to Isoko youths. It is therefore disheartening and to our greatest dismay that he would renege on his promise. We the Isoko youth council hereby demand a fresh contract to be awarded where the interest of the Isoko people will be taken into consideration, with a company chosen by stakeholders from the region or alternatively, to create a subcontract from the already signed one,” the petition stated.
All efforts to reach out to the minister, Sylva were unsuccessful as his mobile line was unreachable. But the Chief Operating Office of the NNPC Upstream, Tombomieye debunked all the allegations, saying the "story is not true.”