LOOK BEYOND ONSHORE SURVEILLANCE - NDPC TELLS FG, PROFFERS SOLUTION TO LOCAL REFINERS 

The Niger Delta People's Congress (NDPC) in the United States of America has appealed to the Federal Government to take its war against oil theft in the Niger Delta region beyond just the award of onshore pipeline surveillance, as the real issues of oil theft is in the deep sea.

The Diaspora group made the plea over the weekend in a congratulatory message that was signed by its President, Bishop Samson Amajene, to High Chief Government Ekpemupolo alias Tompolo, while also commending the Federal Government over the award of the pipeline surveillance and security contract to the former.

According to the NDPC, the stakeholders in the region should join hands together to ensure the contract is a success as it will go a long way to provide jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the region.

Part of the statement reads: "We want to use this medium to thank the Federal Government for awarding the pipeline surveillance and security contract to High Chief Government Ekpemupolo. 

"It is a welcome development considering the fact that it is going to help in providing job opportunities for so many youths in the Niger Delta, not only the youths, even the women and men will be given employment opportunity to fend for themselves. 

"So, we appeal to all stakeholders across the Niger Delta to work together in harmony; all the bad blood is not what is expected at this time. We have lost so much as the people who lay the golden egg that feeds the entire nation. So, whatever the Federal Government is giving to us, while we look for more we should take advantage of it to better the lot of the common man on the streets. By this we are saying that all our people from Edo State down to Cross River State should work together to ensure that this work is executed to the best of what is expected."

However, the group berated the Federal Government for what it says is an attempt to focus on the small issues than the real issues which it alleges involves grand scale oil theft in the deep seas (offshore).

"We want to say that this surveillance contract is a stipend when we talk of what is going on in the deep sea," said Bishop Amajene. "This is onshore we are talking about, what about offshore where a lot of illegal and bunkering activities and oil theft are taking place?

"We want to say that the Federal or the State Government should look beyond just providing surveillance for the onshore oil facilities across the Niger Delta, but they should also look at what is happening in the deep sea, offshore; the many oil tankers that are involved in oil theft and the Federal Government should do what they know they can do to curtail all these. That is where the issues really lie," the group noted.

The Diaspora group also frowns at the approach adopted by the Federal Government in curtailing local refiners, saying that the government ought to partner with the local operators so as to tap into their skills for long term benefits, rather than adopting an approach that the group terms as 'destructive'.

"Concerning the local refiners across the Niger Delta, what the Federal Government should have done was to find a way to encourage them so that they can use this talent to sort of provide job or employment opportunities for the teeming youths. Why don't the Federal Government take advantage of this ingenuity, the creativity and the expertise, in a way that these people that are doing this local refineries have brought to bear?" the group asked rhetorically.

Speaking on the solution, the Diaspora group said: "It could have been a sort of the Federal Government partnering with the local refiners to get this thing done properly, where there will be quality control; all the stages of production would have been monitored. But rather we are now killing these talents instead of encouraging them.

"The issue is not even the local refiners. The issue is those that are doing it in the deep sea. So I want to appeal to both the Federal and the State Government to look into that. Nigeria is losing so much revenue to oil theft in the deep sea, but we are not looking at that. Rather we are looking at the people who are doing the small ones in the creeks (not that we are not encouraging the act). Are we targeting those in the river, in the deep sea?"

The NDPC in its congratulations to Tompolo appealed to the Niger Delta influential leader to uphold its goodwill "as he has been doing in the past, to carry everybody along in the execution of this contract," while also adding that "As one of the eminent leaders in the Niger Delta, we believe he (Tompolo) will do what is right," the group stated confidently.

Source: PENGlobal