By Chidiebere Ugwu
A Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC), Dr Garus Gololo, has called on the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu-led federal government to renew the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo.
Dr. Gololo, who made the call during a chat with news men in Abuja on Sunday also urged the federal government to put measures in place to ensure that the 13 percent derivation fund from the federation revenue to oil-producing communities as enshrined in section 162, sub-section 2 of the Nigerian constitution, do not pass through state governors.
He said machinery should be set in motion to bypass the governors and have the derivation fund paid directly to the communities through the town community leaders and monitored by a neutral committee to be set up by the President.
According to him, several trillions of Naira have been paid to the eight oil and gas producing states under the derivation principle since Nigeria’s Fourth Republic began in 1999, but the intervention activities and physical developments in the oil-producing communities do not reflect the derivation fund received by their states.
“If actually stakeholders want to be free and fair, why do you not release the fund to the host communities. If you release it to the governors the communities will not get. The governors will pocket the money. Governors who can pocket a whole Local Government money, you expect him to release money to host communities. The whole Local Government, because they are under governors they pocket their money meant for them. Don’t forget that last time, when President Mohamadu Buhari wanted to sign into law Local Government Autonomy such that monies will be going direct from federation to local government, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, led then by Dr. Kayode Fayemi, went to court to stop the move. If actually you campaigned for serve the communities why must you go to court for their welfare? Wondered the Gololo.
Dr. Gololo, a Retired General, in the Nigerian Army, stated that if the fund can be made mandatory to get to the communities concern, Nigeria will experience higher level of peace in the Niger Delta region.
“If you go there, the oil exploration activities have dealt with the people, the cannot farm, the cannot drink the water from their river. But if you release the money to their chiefs and youth leaders, those ones cannot eat the money, because if the do, they cannot sleep in their houses. They will use it to develop the community ” he said.
He observed that since Tompolo started handling the pipeline surveillance contract, there have been commensurate peace, urging President Tinubu to renew the contract for the former militant leader.
Gololo who described the pipeline surveillance job as a national assignment undertaken by Tompolo, said as a military man who had traversed all parts of the Niger Delta region and indeed the country as a whole, can say that the former militant leader has done a tremendous job securing the pipelines.
“You could see that we have less pipeline vandalism since Tompolo started handling the pipeline surveillance job. I want to advise federal government to allow Tompolo continue with the pipeline surveillance job. If the want to compensate Asari Dokubo, they should give him another job. They can give him another job because he worked for the party. But Tompolo should be allowed to work for Nigeria because this is for all of us. I am from the North, I don’t know Tompolo, I don’t know Asari, I don’t know host communities, but I have read it as a retired military, I have served that place, I know what it means and I know what those boys can do. As you can the vandalism of pipeline has reduced, Because if you want to catch a thief you give the person who knows the terrain” he said.
