EXPOSE: How Tompolo’s Tantita Security Was Created – Fejiro Oliver

You all know Tantita Security Services as a company that suddenly appeared in public view in 2022, paraded as a fresh saviour of Nigeria’s pipeline security.

That narrative is a lie carefully packaged for public consumption. If pipeline surveillance were awarded through a transparent, competitive bidding process, Tantita would not rank among the first hundred companies in Nigeria qualified to win such a contract. Yet the job was not bid for. It was handed over, freely and strategically, after a bitter internal power struggle that saw the late Captain Nosa Okunbo of Ocean Marine Solutions (OMS) muscled out.

That intrigue will be fully exposed in due course. The truth is that Tantita did not begin in 2022. It was formed in 2005 by Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), Ibrahim Sabo, Godspower Sinwah, and Keston Pondi.
Mark this date carefully, 2007.

The same year late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua introduced the Presidential Amnesty Programme. That amnesty was a national reconciliation effort. It was a pardon by the Nigerian State for past illegal acts committed during the struggle, not a business licence, not a reward scheme, and certainly not a pathway for a few individuals to privatise the wealth of the Niger Delta.

The Amnesty was meant to reintegrate agitators into society. Guns were surrendered. Peace was embraced. In Delta State, the process was largely concluded under fmr. Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, following groundwork by James Ibori, an Urhobo man. Other Niger Delta governors did same with their own sons, Asari Dokubo, Ateke Tom, and others.

Only John Togo rejected the programme, warning that some were using going to use Amnesty as a cover to enrich themselves. Has history not vindicated him?

Years later, strategic withdrawals and substitutions from Tantita as a company began. Tompolo stepped back. Keston Pondi took the front seat, diversion by design, while the machinery quietly moved to corner the benefits meant for the entire Niger Delta.

Then came the covert war against “Capo,” as Captain Nosa Okunbo was known, when he was positioned to take over the pipeline surveillance. This battle was aided by Lt. Col. Agbu Kefas, now Governor of Taraba State. Kefas was NIMASA Governing Board Chairman from 2013 to 2015 under Goodluck Jonathan when Tompolo was doing business, an action that Buhari frowned at due to what he perceived as corruption and declared Tompolo wanted. His cousin company Global Fleet West Africa linked to him had the contract of $103 million for protecting same pipelines against oil thieves which yielded no result and also accused of selling inflated property where the Maritime University is built at $65 million to Jonathan’s government, something he can’t be blamed for as the government agreed to his price. That alliance should explain to you why Kefas remains ever present at Tantita’s events.

By 2019, the struggle intensified. Tantita wanted more pipeline kilometres than OMS. Before then, they were already part of the surveillance ecosystem, quietly being paid through OMS. Documents and figures will be released in a forthcoming video to show the world that the claim that only Captain Nosa benefited for years is another deliberate falsehood.

On November 13, 2019, Keston Pondi and Agbu Kefas became directors in Tantita. This time, OMS was still the major one while paying Tantita to guard some as directed by the FG. Then Capo passed away 08:08:21. The tragic incidence paved the final way.

On February 16, 2023, Tompolo returned as a director.

That date marked a brutal corporate coup, a calculated seizure of Nigeria’s pipeline surveillance structure. They succeeded by over 70%. On that same day, Keston Pondi’s shares were increased. The remaining directors stayed on paper, while Matthew Tolangha played the executioner, the devil’s advocate, removing other contractors KMs, reallocating kilometres, and consolidating control under Tantita.

So when they tell you Tantita began pipeline surveillance in 2022, tell them plainly that Fejiro Oliver said they are lying.

For over a decade right from Jonathan’s era, they have fed on our pipeline surveillance collective wealth in secrecy, gaslighting communities into believing otherwise.

The job only became public in 2022 because Captain Nosa who always took the fall like it was publicly made to believe he alone was in charge was no more alive and again it was an election year. Money began to flow openly. Questions could no longer be suppressed.

Before 2022 and Capo passing away, ask yourself, where were the CSR projects? The loud philanthropy? The festivals and media blitz and buzz? They did not exist because secrecy was the shield. They never planned to share. They believed the truth would never surface.

They sold the media a dumb story of a nonsense N48 billion annual pipeline surveillance job, for a surveillance job to guard your backyard and mine that is actually worth over $700 million given to them and increased to over $1 billion during the renewal.

Tantita took over a job that was done by Capo before through agitation. And if communities demand that every region guard its own pipelines, no injustice has been committed. We do not ask Urhobos, Isokos, Kwale, Ondo, Akwa Ibom, or Edo people to protect pipelines in Gbaramatu. In the same spirit, no one should cross rivers to guard pipelines on another people’s land.

If protection must be collective, then wealth must be equitably shared, not peanuts tossed to impoverished supporters, employees and humiliated kings especially Urhobo, Isoko and Delta North own, who have been starved by deliberate state neglect.

When Governor Sheriff Oborevwori attended Matthew Tolangha’s birthday in Benikrukru, $120,000 was presented as “kolanut.” in the house of the Delta State Assembly Speaker after the football match. lt was accepted, nodded at, and shared out casually. I do not want to be the one to tell you how he felt. No governor no matter how friendly should tolerate a situation where a few individuals control surveillance contracts that financially undermine state authority.

Today, lawmakers in Bayelsa and Delta owe more loyalty to Matthew Tolangha and Keston Pondi than to their governors. Sources confirm that ₦10 million each was allegedly distributed to lawmakers in Bayelsa and Delta under the guise of a “football match” tied to a birthday celebration. Which governor in the Niger Delta and Ondo can do that?

Late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State understood the danger. Before his passing, he initiated steps to ensure Ondo people guarded their own oil pipelines and not Tantita and Maton. That is leadership. That is patriotism to tribe and his own state. That is the path every Niger Delta governor must follow. Pipelines surveillance should go to host communities (HOSTCOM).

Yes, we are organising national and international protests to press these demands home. Like I said, I love Tompolo for what I know about him, the genuineness to truly share the surveillance wealth but stopped by Matthew and Keston Pondi.

This is not me becoming a tribal person but simply saying nobody is more Niger Deltan than another.
If pipeline surveillance wealth cannot be shared justly, then it should not flow at all.

The Nigerian Navy is fully capable of handling the job.

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