the incoming president, General Mohammadu
Buhari would tolerate the surveillance of oil
pipelines and waterways by private
individuals or groups should better think
again as there are now plans to discard the
practice and revert to the use of conventional
security agencies.
Saturday Vanguard’s investigations during
the week indicated that already some highly
placed persons in Buhari’s camp with
military and security backgrounds have
begun to fashion out ways that would
facilitate the process.
GMB
It was gathered that the man behind the
process was a Director in the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential
Campaign Organisation.
His briefs included to liaise with experts in
the sector and other people with rich legal
background to work out the template for the
new surveillance policy.
When this is completed, the incoming
administration, we gathered, would further
equip the Nigerian Armed Forces, especially
the Army and Navy, as well as the police and
the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence
Corps, NSCDC and hand them over the job of
protecting the oil pipelines and other
installations both onshore and offshore.
TOMPOLO
The implication of this however, is that
Buhari’s government would stop the contract
with some former Niger-Delta militants or
groups like the Odua People’s Congress,
OPC in the South-west region which the
Jonathan administration had awarded such
contracts.
GANI ADAMS
The contracts to ex-militants to police
Nigeria’s waterways runs into billions of
naira, the money, experts say should have
been invested in the Navy to perform the
role.
In the build up to the last general elections in
the country, the media was awash with
reports that the outgoing president, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan awarded a surveillance
contract estimated at about N9 billion to the
OPC. OPC leader, Gani Adams severally
thanked President Jonathan for the contract.
Buhari had Wednesday, during his meeting
with Rivers State chieftains of APC in Abuja
warned that his government will not
tolerate”an army within the army or a police
within the police” in the country.
He had also, at a forum in Abuja, told
Nigerians that he would upon assumption of
office reopen the books of the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC for
proper auditing in a bid to ensure
transparency in the oil sector of the
economy.
Speaking in exclusive interview with
Vanguard, a member of the Board of Trustees
of APC, Chief Sam Nkire said that Buhari
would have to tinker with the contracts if
they were not properly awarded.
According to Nkire, the outgoing government
of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had a
lot of underhand deals with some groups.
“Well, once a government has been swept
away, it ceases to exist. The new
government takes charge and whatever it
decides to do, becomes the law. If the
government or presidency of Buhari thinks
those contracts were not properly given out
or were not given to qualified people, of
course, the government will cancel those
contracts.
“And from what I know of the incoming
president, he will not waste a day to cancel
those contracts because these are the
reasons why Nigerians rejected the PDP
government. Because, they did things that
should not be done. They did things without
recourse to the law.
“They did things with impunity and knowing
Buhari as a man who abhors impunity; a
man we can say is one of the incorruptible
persons, I will be surprised if he does not
revoke contracts that were wrongly awarded
if he sees them”, Nkire said.
Other areas the incoming Buhari’s regime
would look into according to Saturday
Vanguard’s investigations include the
Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety
Agency, NIMASA, an agency responsible for
the regulation of the activities of Nigerian
shipping, maritime, labour and coastal
waters and the Federal Inland Revenue
Service, FIRS.
Sources who spoke to Saturday Vanguard
said that the two agencies stink with
corruption and financial improprieties.
“ Two other agencies Buhari must look into
are NIMASA and FIRS. Stories of corruption
in those organizations cannot be ignored. For
the incoming president to be taken seriously
in his pledge to fight and win the war against
corruption, he must sanitize these places.
They stink,” a reliable APC source added.
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