By Obiabin Onukwugha
In 2022, the federal government of Nigeria took a decisive step towards increasing its daily crude oil production output. Nigeria, a member of OPEC+ grapples to meet the daily quota of its oil production pegged at 1.5million barrels per day.This is owed largely to oil theft and critical asset vandalism in the Niger Delta region.
To tackle the menace headlong, the previous administration of President Muhammadu Buhari awarded a multi-billion naira surveillance contract to Tantita Security Services Limited owned by Government Ekpemupolo popularly known as Tompolo in 2022. In defending the decision, the then government described the contract award to Tantita as ‘right decision’, saying it was necessitated by the need for Nigeria to hire private contractors to man its oil pipeline network nationwide due to massive oil theft.
Today Ekpemupolo who once fought against the mistreatment of the Niger Delta communities under the aegis of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), now stands with the federal government, not for selfish reasons, but owing to the fact that oil theft contributes to polluting the Niger Delta environment and its ecosystems.
Before the contract award, statistics showed that Nigeria’s daily output dipped to approximately 480,000bpd between 1998 and 2022.
But Ekpemupolo alongside his team made up of High Chief (Engr.) Pondi E. Kestin as the Managing Director, Engr. Eddy Pondi as the MD Finance, Barr. Emmanuel Jakpa as the Legal Adviser, and Capt. Waredi Enisuoh as the MD Operations, Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited have made tremendous efforts and recorded success in increasing Nigeria’s barrels per day oil production output.
Though there were initial criticisms and calls on the federal government not to renew the contract in 2023, the government’s decision to retain Tantita’s services has paid off. This was corroborated by the Minister of State Petroleum (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, who recently disclosed that crude oil production has increased.
Some of the specific successes of Tantita since 2022 include securing over 1,200 kilometres of pipelines, dismantling over 500 illegal bunkering sites, arresting and prosecuting over 300 oil thieves and preventing an estimated 20 million barrels of oil from being stolen.
The strategy for recording this feat has been that of collaboration, technology and carrying everybody along, according to the Tantita boss.
Recently, Ekpemupolo assured stakeholders that Tantita is tackling the scourge of illegal oil bunkering through a comprehensive and inclusive strategy aimed at not only halting the illegal activity but also educating and engaging those involved on the need to halt their nefarious activities.
He said that by ‘carrying everybody along’ the strategy was meant to address the root causes of the crisis and promote sustainable solutions, stressing his preference for a peaceful Niger Delta. He regretted that the people involved in the illegal business do not understand the magnitude of destruction going on in the environment.
He said: “So, we continue to engage them, enlighten them, and give them some part of the work to do, so that they will be part and parcel of what we are doing. So we are now working with women, our fathers, and everybody to see that we follow the right path, because we don’t have any other place to call our country.
“And that is the reason we don’t also want to be second-class citizens in this country, because we produce the oil that feeds everybody in this nation.”
On his part, Tantita Managing Director (Operations), Capt. Waredi Enisuoh, stated that the company has been working with the marching orders of Ekpemupolo to tackle the menace of oil theft in Nigeria since the contract award.
“The marching order was simple: You must make sure that you go out there and clean up everything that’s necessary. I remember vividly when I went on my first tour of the creeks regarding this whole adventure. There were fishes floating belly up, and you could smell crude oil. The moment the tide goes down, you could see crude oil hanging from the branches of the mangroves.
“That was how bad things were. When we discovered the sophistication with which most of the international groups perpetrate these crimes, we had no choice than to invest in high-level technology. And that is where we had to employ the use of drones with infrared capability.
“Most of the criminals do perpetrate their crimes at night, and that is where drone technology with infrared capability comes into play. So at night, when we fly our long-range drones, medium-range drones, over certain areas, anything that is friendly will continue to remain the way it is.
“But anything that we suspect, becomes white. That has made it very, very easy for us to detect when people are planning to do nefarious things against the country, or give us a chance to go in and interrogate to check if they are doing the right thing. That is why we have been very, very successful when it comes to the technology side of things,” he stated.
Currently, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) has pegged Nigeria’s crude oil production quota for 2024 at 1.5 million barrels daily. Even though the NNPC’s aspiration to increase production to at least 2 million bpd has still not yet been achieved, there is significant progress by Tantita leading the charge to rid the Niger Delta of crude oil theft.