The Federal Government has been urged to deploy modern technology including drones to adequately protect the critical national assets and crude oil pipelines in the country.
This was contained in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Sunday by the Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas.
The statement was signed by the group’s chairman, board of trustees of the community development committees, Joseph Ambakaderimo.
This was as the group faulted the award of a pipeline surveillance contract to a particular private company, saying it was capable of causing a fresh crisis in the Niger Delta region.
Recall that the award of the contract to Tantita security services allegedly owned by ex-Niger Delta agitator, Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as Tompolo had raised concerns among some of his counterparts who want the contract split among other key stakeholders in the region.
Ambakaderimo described the contract as a clear case of arm-twisting of the government to continue to dole out scarce resources to a few people who call themselves defenders of the people.
He called on the Federal Government to cancel the contract and divert the money into deployment of hi-tech measures to monitor the pipelines across the Niger Delta rather than relying on a crude way of deploying men with cutlasses along the creeks.
Ambakaderimo said, “Government must employ the application of high techs such as drones, sensor activation and infrared beams transmitting to a base station that will trigger an alarm.
“The security contractors engaged by the government have not helped after all. There are still cases of pipeline breaches, stealing of crude oil, and vandalisation of critical oil and gas national assets”.
He queried the renewed interest of the ex-militant leaders who met in Port Harcourt last weekend to discuss how to effectively protect the oil pipelines.
He added, “Where were these self-styled ‘Generals’ when our oil production reduced over the years? Is this renewed concern being shown as altruistic or it is all about fighting for fiefdom as the case has always been?
“We must tread carefully for government not to allow itself to be held hostage by non-state actors”.
