08/03/2026
8th,March,2026
Press Release..
PROPOSED TANTITA PROBE: WHY THE PRESIDENCY AND THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MUST TREAD WITH CAUTION IN OTHER TO MAINTAIN THE PEACE IN THE NIGER DELTA REGION.
~DR. IGBETA Ayebakuro Esq.
~Cites improved oil output, Peace and increasing national revenue.
Public affairs commentator and former Legal Adviser of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Barr. Ayebakuro Igbeta, PhD, has called on the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, to ensure the forthright termination of the ongoing plans by the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources to probe activities of the Tantita Security outfit.
Describing the planned investigative action as ill conceived and politically motivated, Barr. Ayebakuro Igbeta stated in a press statement issued in Yenagoa the Bayelsa State capital, advised the Presidency to rather work out modalities for strengthening the ongoing efforts by the Government Ekpomupolo (aka Tompolo) led outfit to make it more robust and all inclusive. He (Igbeta) admonished the Federal Government not to be swayed by the opinion of a few, but be guided in its actions by the achievements of the Tantita Security initiative which has seen the Nigeria Petroleum output gallop from a meagre 1.2M Bpd to an impressive over 2M Bpd thanks to the effectiveness and efficiency of Tompolo and his crew.
"I think It is devilish for anyone with an understanding of the ante of the Nigerian oil/gas industry and the volatile nature of the Niger Delta, particularly as it concerns the security and safety of critical Petroleum assets in the region, to undermine or question the massive success of the Tantita Security initiative, which is not only wide spread across all the nooks & crannies of the Region, but also brings intended results including a guaranteed safety of national assets and more than double national daily production"
Speaking further Barr. Igbeta called on the Senate President Sen. Godswill Akpabio and the leadership of the various concerned House Committees to eschew the proposed Tantita probe as it is more or less a time bomb clicking towards detonation, as a vast majority of Niger Deltans consider the move as a covert ploy to undermine the region by reassigning the security contract to political friends outside of the Niger Delta. Warning that the move is potentially dangerous in its form, the former Legal Adviser of the IYC reminded that the Tantita as currently structured torches on almost a third of immediate households in the Niger Delta and allows the people feel involved in the industry that is no doubt the mainstay of the national economy and which no doubt is their legitimate and moral right, thus any efforts to deprive them that crucial participation under any guise will be met with stiff resistance including another round of vandalism that will most definitely take the government more time and resources to address, it is therefore better according to Igbeta not to throw away the baby with bath water, but engineer internal modifications that allow greater stakeholder participation through more funding of the outfit and or any other perceived shortcoming of the outfit.
"We need not go back to the days of kidnapping of expatriates and vandalization of critical infrastructure, just because someone somewhere wants a greater share of participation or wants everything to himself, we all including the National Assembly know the accusations upon which the planned probe is based are not only spurious but also selfishly motivated, the Federal Government must resist the temptation of destroying a working initiative because they don't like the faces of those driving the process. We in the street can assure the government that if this job is terminated, taken or redesigned to remove the present actors, those calling for probe and reassignment do not have the skill, and connect to deliver the job as effectively as it has presently been delivered by the High Chief Tompolo led Tantita Security Services. I do not have a stake neither do I benefit from the Tantita system, but I hold it as a duty to my country and as a student of history to also remind those in power or put the government in the right perspective(as it were) when its policy trajectory is headed to a certain failure." Igbeta continued.
The popular Bayelsa youth leader enjoined all Governors of the Niger Delta to put a thumbs down on the National Assembly probe, as over the years with the advent of the Tantita Initiative, production has not only improved significantly, but national revenue has more than doubled leading to greater allocations to the states igniting the rapid infrastructural and economic development across board, citing the recent announcement by the Federal Ministry of Finance that Nigeria's Foreign Reserve hits an almost 15years high of over $43Billion is a massive pointer to the tremendous successes of Tompolo and his boys, thus the government must resist the call to pour oil where water is needed.
