Govt Terminates Ethnic Militia Pipeline Surveillance Contract

THE Federal Government has terminated the
pipeline surveillance and protection contract
recently awarded to some ethnic militia by former
President Goodluck Jonathan.
One of the beneficiaries of the pipeline job, the
Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), which confirmed
this in a statement yesterday by its Publicity
Secretary, Mr. Sylvester Eweka, said the Federal
Government had also drafted armed military
personnel to take over the security of the
facilities from the operatives.
The take-over, according Eweka, had already led
to a violent clash between operatives of the militia
group and the police at the oil pipeline close to
Sagamu, Ogun State, during which three of its
personnel had been declared missing. According to
the statement, those missing were Babatunde
Adeyemi, Roland Ajayi and Orungbeja Dele-Osagie.
The men went missing after an armed military
task-force attempted to forcefully eject them
from their area of operation at the pipeline area.
The statement said: “On Sunday, a lorry-load of
task force members invaded the Sagamu area,
claiming it had orders to forcefully reclaim control
of the pipeline area.
“Irked by this unceremonious move, the private
security operatives said they had no signal from
their management to vacate the site.
“However, after the ensuing fracas, three men
could not be accounted for by their team leaders.
“Many of the security operatives fled the scene,
amidst shooting by the task-force.
“The three men were part of the 4,000 private
security operatives employed by New Age Global
Business representing the OPC in the contract with
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) to provide security against criminals
engaged in pipeline vandalism and petroleum
products stealing.
“At the weekend, NNPC abruptly sent an SMS
message terminating the pipeline security contract
with effect from June 15, 2015.”
The Publicity Secretary, who said the OPC security
outfits involved in the contract were being owed
three months salary, further said: “We also demand
that the NNPC immediately takes responsibility for
the damages caused the group and ensure swift
payment of all arrears.”