Pipeline Surveillance: Tambou warns against ethnic campaigns to cancel Tantita contract

A Niger Delta activist, Comrade Preye Tambou, has cautioned ethnic leaders and groups in Delta State calling for the cancellation of the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited to desist, warning that such agitations pose dangers to inter-ethnic relations in the state and beyond.

Tambou, in a statement to journalists in Warri, said the gains recorded in the oil and gas sector since Tantita assumed the surveillance role were “visible before all eyes,” noting that Nigeria’s oil production had been at a low ebb before the firm was engaged.

He stressed that those pushing for the contract’s cancellation on ethnic grounds were promoting a “puerile position” and setting a dangerous precedent. “When agitation shifts from ‘fix the system’ to ‘cancel it if I am not in charge,’ it stops being justice and becomes elite competition by protest,” he said, adding that such calls amounted to “replacement, not reform.”

Tambou argued that pipeline surveillance was awarded strictly on merit and competence, describing it as a federal security contract rather than a form of resource sharing. “Pipeline surveillance is not ‘common wealth’; it is a Federal security contract,” he said, explaining that oil resources belonged to the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the Constitution and the Petroleum Industry Act.

He warned against fragmenting surveillance duties among communities, saying it would encourage the proliferation of arms and threaten national security. “Pipeline vandalism is organised crime, not petty theft,” he said, noting that no serious country decentralises critical security operations in such a manner.

Addressing criticisms of alleged wealth and lifestyle associated with Tantita, Tambou said, “Wealth display is not evidence of criminality. Owning a Rolls-Royce is not proof of theft,” insisting that allegations must be backed by “court-tested evidence, not gossip or vibes.”

He maintained that the real metric for judging the contract was oil theft reduction, noting that production rebounded and illegal bunkering routes were disrupted after surveillance reforms. “Security success is measured by reduction, not perfection,” he said.

Tambou further argued that ethnic framing of the issue was politically motivated. “Turning this matter into Ijaw versus Urhobo versus Isoko versus Itsekiri is not liberation but divide-and-loot politics,” he said, adding that “justice that only awakens when one ethnic group succeeds is not justice; it is envy dressed as ideology.”

Concluding, he said criticism of the contract was legitimate but must be evidence-based and free of ethnic bias. “Criticism is legitimate, but ethnic hate is not,” Tambou stated, warning that dismantling a functional security system without a viable alternative amounted to sabotaging national interest rather than fighting injustice.