President of the Ijaw National Congress, INC, worked to broker a cease-fire between Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, leader of the defunct Movement for Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), and Asari Dokubo, another militant leader who objected to the pipeline surveillance contract the Federal Government gave Tompolo.
This happened at the same time that the Ijaw Patriotic League, IPL, supported the federal government's decision to keep the oil pipeline protection contract given to a business in which Tompolo owns equity.
In a series of viral videos last week, Dokubo, the leader of the Niger Delta People's Salvation Front, NDPSF, criticised Tompolo over the contract and dared him to enter his Kalabari territory in Rivers State to build an 83-kilometer section of pipelines to see what would happen to him and his men.
Prof. Benjamin Okaba, president of INC, explained the agreement to reporters, saying: "The relative peace, call it a truce, is definitely the result of our purposeful intervention and strategic engagement of not just the principal participants but also of their media managers.
“It is true that Tompolo, Ateke, Dokubo and others made personal commitment to the lNC to stop further expression of anger, disappointment and misgivings, believing that the INC will objectively address the remote and immediate causes of the fracas.
“They also pledged to caution their respective managers, loyalists and supporters, especially the media teams, against issuance of inflammatory statements and videos against one another.
“We are determined to take some more audacious steps to put the entire crises surrounding the Tompolo pipeline surveillance contract behind us soonest.
“Congress is resolute in advising the ljaw nation not to allow these crumbs and any other form of inducement to destabilise us. We have greater challenges ahead. We do not have to compromise our unity, we cannot afford to succumb to divisive tendencies and antics orchestrated from within and elsewhere by those who enjoy holding us to perpetual captivity.
“Congress considers the prevailing circumstances as a litmus test of our capabilities to manage complex tempestuous situations as this. lt is a test of the leadership’s ability to handle and transform difficult impossibilities into successes and glorious testimonies,” he said.
National Coordinator of IPL, Jasper Eritei, noted that the decision of the Federal Government to engage Tompolo to assist in securing the nation’s outrageously violated pipelines was a well thought out decision and also in the public good.
He said: “We have watched with surprise and indeed consternation the attacks, deliberately put together to blackmail the Federal Government to cancel the pipeline surveillance and protection contract awarded to a firm in which Tompolo has interest.
“We believe that the Federal Government and indeed the NNPCL have acted positively to promote the common good by embarking on this deliberate master stroke of a step to counter the mindboggling theft of the nation’s disappearing resources.
“Logically, those feeding fat on odious money from stolen crude resources will not welcome the government’s action without a fight. It is expected that they will commit huge resources to sabotage it.
“It is on this basis that we call on the Federal Government and the NNPCL to be resolute and dismiss this call for cancellation of the contract awarded to Tompolo.
“We call on Tompolo to carry out his promise to reach out to various interest groups in the Niger Delta in the interest of a conducive atmosphere for the company’s critical operations.”