Pipeline Contract: Attack on Tompolo is baseless, frivolous, inconsequential -IPDI lambastes Arewa youths

•Says group sponsored by mischief makers

•Insists Tompolo qualifies for such contracts

By Anita Godfrey
& Teide Emomotimi

Pan-Ijaw group, the Ijaw People’s Development Initiative, IPDI, has condemned the alleged sponsored attack launched at a peace-loving Niger Delta leader, High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo by the Arewa Youths Assembly.

In a statement by the group’s national president Comrade Ozobo Austin and Secretary Comr Emmanuel Keneware described the Arewa youths called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and President Buhari not to give High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo surveillance contract as mischievous, concocted, inconsequential, unfounded and inciting, and could fan the ember of discord.

The Niger Delta stakeholders said the Arewa group lacked the power to decide who should be given a surveillance contract or not, adding that the group was sponsored by mischievous people who want to reap from where they didn’t sow.

It would be recalled that the Arewa group, in a statement by its leader Abdulsalam Mohammed Kazeem on Thursday, had urged the NNPC and President Buhari not to consider Tompolo for a pipeline Surveillance contract in the Niger Delta region.

The PAN- Ijaw group stated that the Arewa group lacked the power to stop Tompolo from having surveillance contracts in the country being one of the most respected leaders and a man who had contributed much for the prevailing peace in the Niger Delta region.

The Ijaw leaders said the incisive comments of the Arewa group are capable of fanning the embers of discord and rancour in the volatile Niger Delta region. IPDI however, described Arewa Youths as toothless bulldogs who do not know the colour of Nigerian crude oil, yet trying to stop someone whose land produces the liquid gold that feeds the Arewa Youths and the Nigerian nation.

They maintained that Tompolo and other sons of the Niger Delta were the ones most qualified to be considered for surveillance contracts, and not people from the North whose lands are unfertile to produce the liquid gold.

The activists who debunked claims by the Arewa group which described Tompolo as a militant said he is not a militant but a Niger Delta freedom fighter and advocate of justice. IPDI warned the Arewa Youths to be wary and be guarded to avoid creating unnecessary tensions in the country.