Northern Youth Vanguard blasts group over pipeline surveillance contract

The Northern Youth Vanguard have lambasted the Arewa Youth Assembly for warning the Federal Government of Nigeria over a pipeline surveillance contract allegedly awarded to High Chief Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo.

The Northern Youth Vanguard decried the position of the Northern Youth Assembly as very embarrassing and shameful considering the plethora of security challenges facing the country and particularly the north, it said the group should bury its head in shame. The group wonders how any right thinking northern youths would questions the federal government over trying to solve the insecurity challenges in the country, it said we have all been witnesses to the media coverage the last couple of days as investors and other stakeholders in the oil and gas sector, the nation’s most critical assets have cried out over the parlous state of the oil industry, we have all heard that as much as 95 percent of our crude oil production is being stolen by criminals and economic saboteurs, this is alarming and clearly unacceptable in any government more so in a Buhari’s administration that came on board with the anti corruption mantra.

It said the government has the prerogative to secure the critical economic assets of the nation and as such can delegate the contractual obligations to a capable entity that can secure the pipelines and add value to the nation’s resources and security. This nation at this critical cross road cannot add the vandalization of pipelines and the continues and brazen pillaging of its main revenue earner and economic mainstay to the humongous challenges it is already facing – security and other wise. This is beginning to look like a sabotage to the nation and current government, it seems the intention is to cripple government.

It wondered how northern youths could misplace its priorities in the face of the bedlam of security and other social challenges tearing the region apart, our once peaceful region has now become notorious and infamous globally for acts of terror that would make even the devil cringe, for the first time we are now faced with existential threats that is savagely tearing apart our once closely knitted communities in the north and yet a section of our collegiate youth leadership have the luxury of time to warn the federal government over pipeline surveillance contracts in the Niger Delta.

It said if at all, there is so much the northern youth groups and communities should learn from Tompolo and the other youth leaders of the Niger Delta region, it said Tompolo provided a selfless and cohesive leadership that highlighted the Niger Delta’s region plight to the world and when criminals embedded its activities and started derailing from its lofty objectives ostensibly using the cover of the holistic agitations to terrorise the region’s communities and waterways, the youth leadership of the Niger Delta under Tompolo arrested the situation and purged the vast water ways and communities of the Niger Delta of these sea pirates and other criminal elements, today the Niger Delta is better for it, its unalloyed demands today is well articulated before the world. The Northern Youth Vanguard spokesman rhetorically asked ” can we have the courage and leadership resolutions like Tompolo and his fellow Niger Delta Youth activists so that we can begin to take back our lives and communities from Boko Haram, Bandits, kidnappers, Herdsmen and terrorists that has ravaged and laid bare our north.

The Northern Youth Vanguard continued, drawing attention to the gory spectre of terror that happened in the Abuja – Kaduna bound passenger train just some days ago and at the Kaduna Airport, it concluded our priorities should be focused on drawing the world’s attention to the daily acts of terror in the north and the ever growing number of our displaced and scarred people, particularly women and children. It called and challenged the Arewa Youth Assembly and spokesman Abdusalam Mohammed-Kazeem to take a tour of the ravaged communities in the north and come up with ideas for solutions to the present quagmire in the northern region.