Amid rising tensions between the Urhobo Progressives Union (UPU) and Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited (TSSNL), a private security firm led by Government Ekpemupolo (a.k.a. Tompolo), a prominent community leader in the oil-producing Ogulagha Kingdom of Warri South West Local Council of Delta State, Larry Adanike, has cautioned Urhobo communities against sponsored protests against TSSNL.
 
TSSNL, which plays a critical role in securing the nation’s pipelines, is owned by Tompolo, an Ijaw from Delta State.
 
Adanike, who made the appeal for caution in a statement, yesterday, noted that the same contract, part of which is being handled by Tantita, was previously managed by the late Capt Hosa from Edo State, in Urhobo territories for eight years without protests.
 
He stressed that even when there were rampant incidents of massive pipeline vandalism and its attendant effects on the environment of host communities, there were no such protests.
 
Before Tantita was contracted, he recalled, the nation’s daily oil production crashed to 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), as companies could not pump crude oil from their flow stations because over 85 per cent of products were lost to breaches on the pipelines by oil thieves.
 
According to Adanike, it is inimical to the existing inter-ethnic harmony and unity that has been sustained in Delta for platforms belonging to some ethnic groups to sponsor protests against Tantita’s operations in their communities because the firm belongs to an Ijaw man.
 
He pointed out that even after the death of Hosa, the Olu of Warri presides over acreages far more than that of Tantita in Ijaw-speaking areas of Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom.
 
Also, the Mayor of Urhoboland and industrialist, Eshanekpe Israel, popularly known as Akpodoro, has called for calm in the ensuing development.
 
In a statement issued through the Head of the Association of Urhobo Mayoral Family Crown (AUMFC) yesterday, Akpodoro emphasised that no private or public institution had empowered Urhobo people like TSSNL.
 
The call for peace follows UPU’s recent demand from the Federal Government to terminate TSSNL’s oil infrastructure surveillance contract in Urhoboland and reassign it to an indigenous Urhobo security outfit, an action Akpodoro described as “divisive and premature.”
 
He stressed that TSSNL empowered many Urhobo leaders and youths across oil-producing communities and, therefore, should be embraced rather than attacked.
 
Similarly, Executive Assistant, Security Matters to the Delta Governor, Godwin Okporoko, backed Tantita and urged the National Security Adviser (NSA) to disregard the publication by UPU.