By Levinus Nwabughiogu, Abuja
Anyone who thinks that the administration
of 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.
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 .
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.
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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