FG has signed and awarded the security of the coastal waters to a private contractor favored and lobbied for by Tompolo. The security contract is to help fight crime on the sea but particularly against pirates, who are credited to be too powerful for the Nigerian Navy to control.

Negro_Ntns: FG has signed and awarded the security of the coastal waters to a private contractor favored and lobbied for by Tompolo. The security contract is to help fight crime on the sea but particularly against pirates, who are credited to be too powerful for the Nigerian Navy to control.

Source?? and who is th said private contractor?

Frankly, if the Feds are authorized to award this security related contract to a private company, then Tompolo and any other free Nigerian should be able to lobby for it in a competitive manner. Tompolo has been granted amnesty by the former President Yar'Adua.

AP Exclusive: $103M anti-piracy contract in Nigeria linked to ex-militant from oil-rich delta



Before the amnesty, men allied with the ex-militant, Government Ekpumopolo, carried out attacks and killings



LAGOS, Nigeria — A former militant leader in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta is linked to a private security company that signed a $103 million deal with the government to patrol the West African nation’s waterways against pirates, officials have told The Associated Press.

The commander, who was granted amnesty in 2009, endorsed hiring Global West Vessel Specialist Agency Ltd. to protect the waterways, something Nigeria’s navy and civil authorities appear unable to do.
 

Nigeria struggles with endemic graft; analysts say the nation has one of the world’s most corrupt governments. The government brokered an amnesty deal with militants in 2009 that has since seen oil production rise dramatically, but the $103 million contract raises worries about the influence of former militants.

“It is alarming that the patrol and control of Nigeria’s coastal borders is being handed to a private concern, run by a known warlord, even (if) he is a rehabilitated rebel,” said an editorial in The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record of Nigeria’s north.

A government official saw no problem with the contract.

“Even if it were to be owned by a militant, what offense has the militant has committed in owning a business?” asked Ziakede Patrick Akpobolokemi, director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, which will partner with the private firm. “Here is a country where people have served prison terms and become heads of state or presidents. ... When people say ‘ex-militant this,’ ‘ex-militant that,’ they should be mindful of their utterances.”

It is unclear whether Ekpumopolo, also known by his nom de guerre Government Tompolo, has any financial position in Global West Vessel Specialist Agency Ltd. One of the owners said Tompolo had no interest in the company.

Tompolo served as a commander in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which was one of several militant groups that crippled Nigeria’s oil industry in the southern delta from 2006 to 2009 with a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies.

The region of mangroves and swamps, about the size of Portugal, has been the seat of oil production in Nigeria for more than 50 years. The easily refined crude produced by foreign oil firms provides an energy supply critical for the gasoline-thirsty United States.

Fighters under Tompolo bombed crude oil pipelines, attacked soldiers and kidnapped foreign workers under the flag of the militant group. In May 2009, Tompolo’s forces engaged in one of their biggest battles with soldiers after kidnapping 15 Filipino sailors. Two of those kidnapped died and Amnesty International said hundreds of people were killed in the fighting as the military brought in helicopters and jet fighters.

Later that year, Tompolo would be among the first militant commanders to lay down his weapons in the government-led amnesty program. He largely slipped out of public view, though he and other militants routinely could be found in the ground-floor lounge of the Hilton in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/ap-exclusive-103m-anti-piracy-contract-in-nigeria-linked-to-ex-militant-from-oil-rich-delta/2012/03/29/gIQAsnK3iS_story.html

See as terrorist come look like serious Business man/Banker for the picture . . . kai!!! The man don land im millions.

Make I ask sef oo . . the man still dey collect amnesty package in addition to all this?

Correction is advised for the title. Tompolo is an ex-militant, and he also enjoy full amnesty. End of!

Thats not Tompolo in the picture.

Point B,

will you accept an ex-robber whose hands is stained with innocent blood to marry your daughter? Focus on the implication of the security risk of this contract to future political outcomes when other regions are in power and the broadness with which their imagination can extend the range for contracting security of the sovereignty to private hands. The EX designation is not important, a robber and murderer is simply no longer a fitting and credible member of society to be entrusted with the care and protection of your child. Am i correct?

“Even if it were to be owned by a militant, what offense has the militant has committed in owning a business?” asked Ziakede Patrick Akpobolokemi, director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, which will partner with the private firm. “Here is a country where people have served prison terms and become heads of state or presidents. ... When people say ‘ex-militant this,’ ‘ex-militant that,’ they should be mindful of their utterances.”

Hahaha

I no blame you jare.

Negro_Ntns: Thats not Tompolo in the picture.

Point B,

will you accept an ex-robber whose hands is stained with innocent blood to marry your daughter? Focus on the implication of the security risk of this contract to future political outcomes when other regions are in power and the broadness with which their imagination can extend the range for contracting security of the sovereignty to private hands. The EX designation is not important, a robber and murderer is simply no longer a fitting and credible member of society to be entrusted with the care and protection of your child. Am i correct?

But you and your folks supported the continuous marginalization of the SS and the SE Zone. South South Zone deserved at least 50% of their resources, while the SE deserve and additional state, and also the presidency. When other regions were in power, they were busy allocating oil blocks to themselves, have you focused on that lately? Should the fellow who come to equity not come with clean and open hand?

We cannot simply pick and choose what is good. Let this and other matter be discussed at a Sovereign National Conference, other than that, the current jungle law of Nigeria should continue. Let those in power continue to do as they please; support or criticism will be based on political expediency.

In any case, Tompolo getting a government contract has not bearing with whether he marries my daughter or not. The two issues are not related; besides my daughter will be be free to marry whoever she chooses knowing all the facts because she will marry as an adult!

Kilode,

there is truth in that statement, but there is a twist of fate in it also.

If the Tompolos and the IBBs, the OBJs, the Yar'Aduas, Dokubos, Abachas, Abu Qaqas must be lumped together now as crops of the same spirit and whatever befits one of them is befitting the other, then I fear for the day when SLS shall be our President and Kabiru Sokoto wins a security contract for policing our cities and metros.

Negro_Ntns: Kilode,

there is truth in that statement, but there is a twist of fate in it also.

If the Tompolos and the IBBs, the OBJs, the Yar'Aduas, Dokubos, Abachas, Abu Qaqas must be lumped together now as crops of the same spirit and whatever befits one of them is befitting the other, then I fear for the day when SLS shall be our President and Kabiru Sokoto wins a security contract for policing our cities and metros.

When we get to that bridge, we shall cross it. Nigeria is not a perfect country, as a matter of fact it is a bundle of contradiction. We live a day at a time!

point B,

In that last response, you just exemplified the typical Southern sit-down-and-look approach to politics. The tomorrow is another day attitude has not yielded favorable outcomes. The Northerners grab the bull by its horns, d a m n everyone! They know what just happened and we all know they will outdo GEJ when their turn comes to reward their pseudo military vagabonds. What will we do and how will we handle it?

They did not start the coup remember. . . they only responded to it. They did not start the agitation for reviewing 13% derivation. . . they only responded to it. They did not start the contention over offshore oil ownership. . . . they responded to it.

They are calculative in the North while we are hopeful in the South.

Negro_Ntns,

I know, it's a sad state of affairs, In Nigeria you sometimes have to roll with the punches and wait for an opportunity to deal your own blow.

Hopefully the people empowering Tompolo and Boyloaf won't come out in a few years complaining about their abuse of power.

We dey here dey watch drama.

Kilode?!:
Negro_Ntns,

I know, it's a sad state of affairs, In Nigeria you sometimes have to roll with the punches and wait for an opportunity to deal your own blow.

Hopefully the people empowering Tompolo and Boyloaf won't come out in a few years complaining about their abuse of power.

We dey here dey watch drama.

When the time come, and they complain, let's deal with it.

Negro_Ntns: point B,

In that last response, you just exemplified the typical Southern sit-down-and-look approach to politics. The tomorrow is another day attitude has not yielded favorable outcomes. The Northerners grab the bull by its horns, d a m n everyone! They know what just happened and we all know they will outdo GEJ when their turn comes to reward their pseudo military vagabonds. What will we do and how will we handle it?

They did not start the coup remember. . . they only responded to it. They did not start the agitation for reviewing 13% derivation. . . they only responded to it. They did not start the contention over offshore oil ownership. . . . they responded to it.

They are calculative in the North while we are hopeful in the South.

True words. But still noted!

Lets not get it twisted. While Tompolo, as a freeman has the right to bid for any government contract, we must understand that it does not look good for the government to award a contract to an ex-millitant. Only a clueless President will allow such to happen.

We all know that it is the duty of the Nigerian Navy to protect the Nigerian waters, not otherwise as fraudulently being done by the maritime agency, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), which awarded the contract.

If the Feds do not find a way to block this contract, I pity the region when power changes hands.