Lead Consultant to Tantita Security, Services Nigeria Limited (SSNL), Emmanuel Jakpa, has said that surveillance contract awarded to the company was not a proof of failure of governance.
Jakpa was reacting to recent comments credited to a group called the Academy of International Affairs in Warri, Delta State.
Jakpa said that the Academy, which comprised ex-ministers and ex-diplomats, had, in a statement, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to terminate the award of the pipeline security surveillance contract to Tantita SSNL.
He said that the statement was issued by its president, former Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi.
Recall that the Federal Government had recently awarded multibillion dollars pipeline surveillance contract to Tantita SSNL, a privately-owned company associated with High Chief Government Ekpemupolo a.k.a Tompolo.
The lead consultant also said that the Academy had urged the Federal Government to institute a judicial board of inquiry into oil theft in Nigeria covering crude oil and petroleum products, among others.
The group observed that it was an exercise in futility to “ask some of those suspects involved in oil theft scandal to go round in search of illegal pipelines and oil criminals.”
He said that the Academy also observed in it is statement that Tantita SSNL would only present a wishy-washy report that would absolve them from any blame, given the antecedence of such private interest in insurgency and militancy in the Niger Delta region.
Jakpa added that the Academy asked whether it was not a big shame that a private company, Tantita SSNL had to be employed when Nigeria’s security failed.
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