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The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Worldwide, Central Zone, on Friday, urged the federal government not to yield to the call of those calling for the decentralization of pipeline surveillance contracts, noting that their agitations are self serving.
Speaking at a press conference in Yenagoa, after extensive meetings with all the leaders and organs from different clans within the zone, the Chairman, IYC Central Zone, Comrade, Ineife Perekosufa, stated that the pipeline protection under the current leadership has recorded more significant successes, than any other time in history.
He noted that the memorandum has become necessary in light of the recent agitation and coordinated campaign of calumny by certain individuals and their associates.
Citing the benefits recorded through what he described as a well coordinated and people oriented surveillance under Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd, noted that since Tantita assumed responsibility in 2022, Nigeria has witnessed a dramatic improvement in pipeline security and oil production stability.
“Hundreds of illegal tapping points have been discovered and dismantled. Thousands of illegal refining sites have been destroyed. Pipeline vandalism has significantly reduced. Vessels previously loitering in shallow offshore areas to facilitate oil theft have largely ceased operations due to sustained enforcement actions by Tantita”
He further stated that “Host communities that were once deeply entangled in illegal oil activities are now actively collaborating with surveillance teams to protect national assets”
Explaining further, he said “These achievements have directly contributed to the recovery of Nigeria’s oil production and the stabilisation of national revenue. It is for this reason that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu could confidently state that state governments are no longer struggling to secure loans, as there is now access to steady monthly revenue”
Perekosufa stated that “Beyond security operations,
Tantita has also achieved something unprecedented in the history of private oil infrastructure protection in the Niger Delta. The company has engaged and empowered more local communities than any other private security or surveillance organisation in the region.
Thousands of youths across Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Edo, Ondo, and other parts of the Niger Delta have been directly or indirectly employed in pipeline protection activities. Former operators of illegal refining camps have been rehabilitated and integrated into lawful economic activities.
Community leaders, traditional rulers, youth groups, and women’s
organisations have all been incorporated into a collaborative framework that promotes local ownership of pipeline security. No private company operating in the Niger Delta has achieved this scale of grassroots engagement.
It is therefore both ironic and suspicious that, at a time when the Niger Delta is experiencing relative peace and improved economic stability, certain individuals are aggressively campaigning for the dismantling of the current surveillance structure.
We must therefore ask the question that many Nigerians are already asking:
Why are these individuals suddenly desperate to decentralise a system that is clearly working?
The answer is not difficult to discern. The current operational structure under Tantita has drastically reduced opportunities for organised crude oil theft.
Many of those now advocating decentralisation were prominent actors during the era when illegal oil bunkering thrived across the Niger Delta.
The truth is simple and uncomfortable: many of those demanding decentralisation seek to regain the leverage and territorial control that would once again enable large-scale oil theft. Their agitation is not about development, fairness, or inclusion—it is about restoring access to pipelines and reopening the creeks to organised oil theft.
It is, in essence, an attempt to reclaim a lucrative criminal enterprise that the current Tantita framework has successfully disrupted. Even more revealing is the selective outrage directed at Tantita, despite the existence of other surveillance arrangements in the region.
