Navy Lied, No Tompolo Men Involve In Oil Theft –IPDI Writes Tinubu

•Says Navy is on voyage of vendetta, blackmail

By Peters Monday, Abuja

Niger Delta socio-cultural group, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, has written to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to disregard the purported arrest of Tompolo’s Tantita security men and involvement of oil theft in Lekki, Lagos by the Nigerian Navy as reported by a section of the media.

The group said the report was fake and a move to dent the hard-earned reputation of High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo by the Nigerian Navy.

This is according to a statement by the group’s national president, Comrade Ozobo Austin on Friday.

He said enquiry made had shown that Tantita men apprehended oil thieves using a big local craft when the Navy came and move Tantita men away and framed them up following recent conflicts between the two security groups.

The activist said the Navy campaign of calumny against Tompolo was not strange to him following the recent conflicts between the Navy and Tantita Pipeline Security Services Limited, stressing that the desperation of the Navy to rope Tantita was taken too far and it was shameful.

It would be recalled that the Tantita security outfit had in July intercepted a vessel conveying illegal crude products which was escorted by the Nigerian Navy.

The activist posited that the officials of the Nigerian Navy who considered the arrest of the vessel as an affront had threatened Tantita with brimstone and were allegedly looking for an opportunity to rope Tompolo and Tantita security outfit.

Ozobo said the Nigerian Navy is on a voyage of vendetta and blackmail, adding that he was disappointed over the unwarranted framed-up against Tompolo men by the Navy.

He said it was sad that the Nigerian Navy is failing in its mandate for resorting to cheap blackmail and vendetta.

IPDI described the Commander, NNS BEECROFT of the Nigeria Navy, Commodore Kolawole Olumide Oguntuga’s action as a disgrace to the Nigerian Navy force and the federation, urging the general public to disregard the entire report, that it was a complete falsehood and figment of the imagination of the fifth columnists.