Tompolo: The Billionaire Militant – TheNEWS Africa

Government Ekpemupolo
a.k.a. Tompolo, a former
militant has risen to become
a strong ally of the federal
government, and a billionaire
businessman
Only three years ago, he was
a fugitive. In May 2009,
Brigadier-General Sarkin Yaki
Bello, commander of the
Joint Military Task Force, JTF,
in Niger Delta, had declared
Government Ekpemupolo the
most wanted man in Nigeria.
Bello had fingered
Ekpemupolo, or Tompolo, as
he is widely known, and his
band of militants in the
Gbaramutu creeks of the
Niger Delta as executing the
killing of 11 soldiers – one
officer and 10 junior men. It
was just one of the many
instances of the militants’
atrocities.
The militants had been
running riot in the Niger
Delta, perpetrating
illegitimate bunkering,
operating illegal refineries,
vandalising oil pipelines,
engaging in kidnapping and
doing piracy. And Tompolo
was in the thick of it as one
of the leaders. The JTF was
intent on doing him in.
Bello’s men stormed the
Okerenkoko, operations
headquarters of Tompolo,
desperately searching for
him. They were successful all
right, but not in nabbing
Tompolo. What they found
were numerous rifles,
machine guns, Uzzi guns,
Army mistin carriers,
dynamite and gun boats. In
the Niger Delta, Government
Ekpemupolo, ruthless,
invincible and taciturn, was
and is indeed, a government
all of his own.
Today, Tompolo is not only a
free man, he is a darling of
the very federal government
that only three years ago,
considered him an arch
enemy deserving of
extermination. Despite his
violent past and little
education, he is one of the
most influential Nigerians
today. There is no doubt that
he is very close to President
Goodluck Jonathan. To
cement the romance,
government has invested the
Global West Vessel Specialist
Limited, GWVSL, a firm
widely believed to be owned
by Tompolo, with a contract
worth $103.4 million (over
N15 billion) to supply 20
vessels for the use of the
nation’s military authorities to
secure the waterways.
Director-General of the
Nigerian Maritime
Administration and Safety
Agency, NIMASA, Ziadeke
Akpobolokemi, had last year
sent a memo titled, “Award
of Contract for the Strategic
Concessioning Partnership
with NIMASA to Provide
Platforms for Tracking Ships
and Cargoes, Enforce
Regulatory Compliance and
Surveillance Of The Entire
Nigerian Maritime Domain,”
to President Goodluck
Jonathan.
In considering the memo,
President Goodluck Jonathan
and Akpobolokemi chose
GWVSL as the preferred
company for the 10-year
concession agreement. The
concession is renewable for
two terms of five years each.
Jonathan, in a memo dated 9
November 2011, with
reference number PRES/99/
MT/61, approved
Akpobolokemi’s memo, which
the Federal Executive Council
rubber-stamped on 5 January
2012. According to
Akpobolokemi, GWVSL “will
provide platforms for
effective policing of Nigeria’s
maritime domain and ensure
compliance with international
maritime conventions on
vessels and ships voyaging
the country’s waters”.
NIMASA maintains that the
concessionaire would help
the federal government to
enforce the sabotage law and
collect levies on its behalf.
NIMASA’s projection shows
that about N124bn is
expected to be generated in
revenue to the federal
government by GWVSL.
Akpobolokemi underlines the
public-private partnership
with Tompolo’s company as
necessary because the
federal government could not
bear the cost of the project.
Jonathan has sent the new
memo to the National
Assembly, urging it to
discountenance an earlier
one submitted by the late
President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Yar’Adua’s memo sought to
create a coastal guard,
comprising all security
agencies, to man the
country’s maritime domain.
Although the Minister of
Transport, Senator Idris
Umar had striven to explain
there were no underhand
dealings to the maritime
contract, critics still read
ethnic jingoism into it.
President Jonathan,
Akpobolokemi and Tompolo
all hail from the Niger Delta,
whose people have for many
years been expressing
infuriation that they are
being oppressed despite the
fact that the geographical
area produces the oil that
enriches Nigeria. Umar told
journalists that contrary to
speculations that the GWVSL,
by the contract, would be
usurping the functions of the
Nigerian Navy, the company
would only be providing
platforms, security boats,
equipment and expertise to
assist in securing Nigeria’s
waterways and thereby
leverage on revenue
generation. The company’s
hands will not bear arms.
More importantly, it is
GWVSL, and not government,
Umar disclosed, that would
be providing the entire
$103.4mn fund for the
exercise and it would be
recouping its investment
from surpassing NIMASA’s
annual revenue collection
profile. “Under the NIMASA
Act, it is empowered to take
charge of administration and
the safety of our waters. And
under the same Act, NIMASA
has been empowered to
carry out its functions, duties
and responsibilities either by
itself or through any
institution of government or
in partnership with any
agency of government or
through or in partnership
with any natural person or
limited liability company like
the Global West Limited
which has now entered into a
partnership with NIMASA,”
Umar clarified in justifying
the contract.
But the critics, mostly
northern leaders, accused the
President of secretly pursuing
an ethnic agenda and
wondered why what they
called a sensitive contract
that borders on national
security should be handed to
a private company. They also
wondered if the
concessionaire would keep
the huge accruals even if it
met its target in one month
of its operation. The
disenchanted leaders cited
the abrupt deployment of
former Minister of Transport,
Yusuf Suleiman to the
Ministry of Sports for once
querying Akpobolokemi over
the Tompolo issue. Suleiman
was believed to be furious
with Akpobolokemi for
allegedly paying N49mn
weekly to Tompolo’s
company to secure the
waterways. But Akpobolokemi
justified the payment,
claiming that it was payment
for five vessels hired from
Tompolo’s company by the
agency. The power play
between Suleiman and
Akpobolokemi assumed an
ethnic dimension as some
Niger Delta elders waded in
in support of the NIMASA
boss. Suleiman eventually lost
his job as Transport Minister.
Sources told TheNEWS that
Akpobolokemi was Tompolo’s
candidate for the NIMASA
job. Jonathan, it was
gathered, preferred to
remove the minister from his
position than risk infuriating
Tompolo, a man the
president is very happy to
have on his side.
Immediately Suleiman
queried Akpobolokemi and
sent a clear signal to him
that he could be fired,
Tompolo called Suleiman
asking him to show mercy to
the NIMASA boss. But
Jonathan moved fast by
redeploying Suleiman from
the Transport Ministry to
Sports.
The GWSVL contract is
regarded in many quarters as
merely formalising a job
Tompolo has been informally
performing for NIMASA for
many months; and has been
feeding quite fatter on. For
the 43-year-old creek-wise
roughneck, it has been a
long, tortous road to
stupendous wealth and the
billionaire club. Frail of figure
but so stout of courage,
Tompolo balances whatever
deficit he suffers in
educational accomplishments
with suicidal but calculatingly
rewarding proclivities. Born
to a royal house in
Okerenkoko in Gbaramatu
kingdom, Warri South-West
Local Government, Delta
State, little Government
attended Okepopo Primary
School, Warri and later, Warri
Comprehensive College,
leaving in 1993.
The increasingly combative
restiveness of Niger Delta
youths against what they
perceived exploitation by the
federal government cut
Tompolo’s future out for him.
In 1997, he began his quasi-
military career as an Ijaw
soldier during the bloody
crisis between the Ijaw and
the Itsekiri over then Head of
State, Gen. Sani Abacha’s
relocation of a local
government headquarters
from the Ijaw area to
Itsekiri’s. Once disclosing
what prompted him into
militancy, Tompolo explained
he and others like Paul,
Dennis, Ketson, Kingsley
Otuaro, Oboko Bello, Dan
and George Timinimi were
furious that what they firmly
believed was their land was
being taken over by their
Itsekiri neighbours. He
narrated that in the 1980s,
there was a time the Itsekiri
people wanted to collect rent
from those living in
Okerenkoko, a town that is
today an Ijaw community in
Gbaramatu kingdom. “The
Itsekiri people say they are
the owners of Gbaramatu
kingdom as a whole. From
what I was told, we (Ijaw) are
the original owners of the
land in question, and our
Itsekiri brothers came to
meet us there,” he asserted.
Tompolo recalled that he was
always accompanying his
father’s elder brother, the
late Papa Gbamido
Ekpemupolo as he went from
one court to another, in
Benin, Warri or Abuja, over
cases between the Ijaw in
Gbaramatu and the Itsekiri.
“So when we realised that if
we didn’t stand firm we
would be forced to pay rent
to our neighbour, we decided
to take our lives in our hands
and fight out the battle. That
is where the battle between
us and our Itsekiri brothers
started,” he stated. The face-
off was compounded by the
relocation of the
headquarters of Warri South-
West Local Government Area
from Ogbe-Ijoh to Ogidigben,
an Itsekiri community.
The war threw up Tompolo
as a ruthless and brave
soldier and a good manager
of forces. After the war,
threats to his life and his own
ambition of playing in the
bigger league compelled him
to move to Oporoza within
the Gbaramutu kingdom.
There, two developments
emerged to lend Tompolo
excuses for his militancy and
its underlying goal of
mercantilism. Violent
agitations against the oil
multinational, Shell, had been
growing since Abacha
deployed soldiers against the
Ogonis and other Niger Delta
elements protesting against
oil spillages, general
environmental degradation
and non-development of the
oil-producing areas. The coup
de grace was government’s
hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa,
an Ogoni and
environmentalist.
Tompolo arrived the Niger
Delta agitation cauldron at
the right time, after Abacha’s
death, and keyed in
efficiently into the scattering
of unorganised armed groups
disrupting the multinational
companies’ oil prospecting
and producing operations,
especially Shell’s. He was
particularly alleged to be a
pointman in the attacks
against Shell, accusing it of
environmental despoilation
and exploitation. Helpless
against the militants’ guerilla
attacks – and kidnapping of
its officials, to boot – Shell
quickly got the message.
Tompolo’s operations turned
into a protection racket, with
Shell shelling payments to the
young, ruthless militant and
his associates to assure, at
least, some measure of
smooth operations.
Second, on the return to
democracy, the wont of
Nigeria’s political leaders to
apply violence on opponents
and need for private
protection demanded the
services of tough, fearless
goons. In the Niger Delta,
many of the politicians
turned to the militants who
already boasted heavy
weapons and understood the
terrain. When state governors
came into power, they only
boosted the artillery
firepower of the militants on
whom they splashed money
to acquire more arms. Thus,
the Niger Delta, populated by
fierce, gun-toting youth,
became a hotbed of both
violent attacks on oil
companies and oil
installations, as well as
violent political thuggery. In
2003, Tompolo led the
Federated Niger Delta Ijaw
Communities, FNDIC, in an
uprising that shut down
about 40 per cent of
Nigeria’s oil production,
targeting mostly Chevron’s
installations.
Gradually, Tompolo’s fame as
a vicious war general but a
principled and maganimous
leader to his forces spread
through the creeks. He had
moved back to Okerenkoko
to establish Camp 5 as his
headquarters. Camp 5 was
originally a private property
called “Abuja” in the
neighbourhood from where
he and his colleagues started
the struggle. And gradually,
the money began to flow in –
from the various rackets of
political and corporate
protection, to illegal
bunkering. He was effectively
leader of the Delta State end
of the Niger Delta militants’
battle against oppression. As
Convener of the Ijaw Youth
Leadership Forum, IYLF, the
umbrella body of all Ijaw
young militants, Tompolo
was, and is said to still be,
providing mentorship and
logistic support for all
members. Across Delta State,
he contributed to
strengthening other militant
groups. One example was
Mujahid Dokubo Asari’s Niger
Delta People’s Volunteer
Force, NDPVF, to which
Tompolo not only provided
field fighters but also
supplied the necessary arms
and ammunition that
ensured Asari’s successful
commencement of his
military campaign against oil
installations.
Tompolo’s intervention also
helped to check the
rampaging influence of Ateke
Tom’s Icelander Group,
which was on the verge of
overrunning Buguma, Asari’s
hometown in Rivers State. As
admitted by Asari himself:
“Tompolo decided on his own
volition to give me 50 AK47s
which I used to launch the
first series of attacks on the
stronghold of the Icelanders.
All my attacks were
successful.”
Tompolo’s profile and stature
soared in 2006 when he
gathered his fellow group
leaders from across the Niger
Delta at Camp 5 to accord
their struggle a definite name
and platform. Besides, the
new platform was meant to
be immediately used to press
for the release of Asari and
Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the
former Bayelsa State
governor, both of who were
incarcerated by the federal
government. So it was at
Camp 5, Tompolo’s
headquarters, that the
Movement of the
Emancipation of the Niger
Delta, MEND, was formed.
MEND was, however, not
formed as an umbrella
organisation of all the
militant groups but as an
organ to issue unified, rather
than discordant, statements
for them. So if any of the
groups attacked any oil
installation or kidnapped any
figure, it was MEND that
would admit responsibility for
the act.
Tompolo had maintained in a
rare interview that it is not
an issue in dispute that he
was the founder of MEND. “I
did not go to school, so
anything concerning paper
work, there are people who
handle it. I am not the only
person; there are others. If
you are doing something,
you have to put heads
together with others because
the idea is to cut across our
nine states. That was how
MEND was formed and that
was the reason the last time
that all the ex-militant
leaders went to Abuja. In the
presence of everybody, I told
them that I am the owner of
MEND. It was formed in
Camp 5. I said it in the
presence of everybody and
nobody can contest it with
me,” he declared. Names
Tompolo was referring to as
the intellectual minds behind
his operations then included
Oboko Bello, who studied
Mathematics up to the
doctoral level and Henry
Okah, who was appointed in
Camp 5 as the propangadist
for MEND though he was not
in the country. Okah has
since been arrested in South
Africa for gun-running and
the 1 0ctober 2011
(Independence Day) bombing
in Abuja.
Tompolo boasted that, apart
from Dokubo-Asari and Ateke
Tom, every other militant
general had his tutelage at
Camp 5. “Henry Okah was
one of us. That is the truth
and he is somebody that if
not for greed and his trying
to say that I want to be all
and all, he is one person that
all of us respect. He is one of
us,” he said. Based in South
Africa, Okah was the brains
behind the e-mail and text
messages to media
establishments on MEND’s
activities.
MEND announced its first
signature statement with the
abduction of nine foreign
staff – three Americans, two
Egyptians, two Thais, one
Briton and one Filipino – of
Wilbros, an American oilfield
services company based in
Panama but with a major
office and company
executives in Houston. Its
Nigerian operational base is
Choba, Port Harcourt.
Wilbros has since been
acquired by Nigerians; it is
widely believed that former
governor of Delta State,
James Ibori, now serving
term in an English jail is
behind the acquisition.
MEND, which claimed to be
fighting for a greater share of
Nigeria’s oil wealth, claimed
responsibility for the
Saturday 17 February 2006
abduction. There followed a
series of raids which
consequently cut Nigeria’s
crude oil exports drastically
and negatively impacted on
the economy.
Until the JTF fell out with
Tompolo’s militant group, he
was the Task Force’s favoured
boy. The JTF was always
turning to him for
information and assistance to
nail pirates and kidnappers,
and as one unconfirmed
source said, his magnanimity
was always rubbing off in
some forms on the men and
officers of the Force. In July
2004, Tompolo was said to
have assisted the JTF, then
under the command of Brig-
General Elias Zamani to
capture John Togo, a
notorious sea pirate and his
gang that included
Perembowe Ebinimie, Felis
Dissi and Peter Dolobowei.
The JTF and the Delta State
government were also said to
be employing Tompolo’s
structures to provide security
for the troubled waterways in
the state. The source alleged
that Tompolo was earning as
much as N100mn every
month to maintain peace, on
behalf of government, on the
waterways.
By 2009, Tompolo had
amassed so much influence
in Niger Delta affairs that
even powerful figures in the
zone looked up to him for
economic and political
empowerment. Reliable Niger
Delta sources affirmed that
his influence sustained his
kinsman, Chief Wellington
Okrika as Executive Chairman
of the Delta State Oil
Producing Areas Development
Commission, DESOPADEC, for
so long. Tompolo was also
said to have virtually single-
handedly enthroned Godwin
Bebenimibo, a retired
Superintendent of Police, as
Gbaran III Agadagba, the
traditional ruler of the
Gbaramatu kingdom.
So when in June 2009, the
President Yar’Adua
administration embarked on
implementing its Amnesty
programme for Niger Delta
militants, it could not but
court Tompolo as the
arrowhead of the
programme. The federal
government could not afford
not to patronise him; his
acceptance of the amnesty
programme largely
influenced other militant
leaders to embrace peace.
His embrace of the peace
overtures largely crumbled
MEND, the structure that
wrought havoc and nearly
crippled the economy of the
nation. Newspaper reports
painted how Tompolo
received a hero’s attention on
the day he led more than
1,500 militants to surrender
their weapons in Oporoza
village. Received by then
Minister of Defence, retired
General Godwin Abbe and
cheered on by hundreds of
people wearing vests with the
inscription Tompolo Is Our
Hero, the militant
surrendered a large cache of
arms that included general
purpose machine guns, rifles,
rocket launchers, explosives
and countless numbers of
various ammunition.
Tompolo was reported to
have shed tears at the
occasion while remembering
close friends, associates and
relatives who had died while
the militants were waging
what he called a fight to free
the people of the Niger Delta
from bondage. He promised
that since the militants have
embraced amnesty, the issue
of MEND and the reason to
shed blood was over. The
warlord insisted that anybody
using MEND for any
liberation cause for the Niger
Delta would be doing so for
his personal interest. He,
however, warned that if the
federal government reneges
on its promises to develop
the Niger Delta, militants in
the area would have no
choice but to go back to
taking up arms.
Tompolo always cites Isaac
Adaka Boro, the late Ijaw
militant who was killed
during the Nigerian civil war,
as his hero and the main
inspirational figure for his
daring struggle against the
federal government. He
strongly believes in the
Egbesu deity, the god that
many Ijaw worship, and sees
it as directing his survival so
far. He explained that the
deity helped him to achieve
his aims and objectives, since
he was pursuing what he
insisted was “a genuine
struggle”.
Now a High Chief in his
Gbaramatu kingdom,
Tompolo’s frail physique
belies the daring spirit
within. At his Camp 5
headquarters, he determines
the rules of engagement. On
one occasion in 2007, when
Jonathan, then Vice-
President, visited the camp
for talks with Tompolo, his
convoy and guards were
strictly denied entry into the
camp. Only Jonathan was
said to have been allowed in.
Throughout the struggle,
Tompolo gave the JTF the
fiercest, combative
resistance. But away from the
struggle, he is described as
so unassuming; even till now
that he is a billionaire, he
relates freely with his Ijaw
kinsmen and the larger Niger
Delta people. He constantly
denies he was, and is,
involved in illegal bunkering.
“My name became associated
with oil business when I was
in Camp 5. When people
were doing illegal business in
my area (front of Camp 5), I
had people with me and
would ask them to go and
ask these people to give
them some money so that
we could feed with it. But I
would never do it myself,” he
said. “Everybody knows that I
am not a bunkerer and that
is the more reason why I am
surviving up till date,” he
once told a national daily.
Talking about illegality,
Tompolo, typical of him, has
not been heard to say a word
on the raging GWVSL contract
that some critics have been
lampooning. So what is illegal
about it? Nothing, absolutely
nothing, insisted
Akpobolokemi. The NIMASA
Director-General queried: “If
it is Tompolo that the
contract was awarded to, is
he not a citizen of Nigeria? Is
he an ex-convict? Is he not
more than 18 years old to
own a company? We have
hundreds of vessels which in
the past 10 years and up till
this moment, including patrol
boats supplied by private
individuals to oil
multinational companies, that
are working in conjunction
with the Nigeria Navy. Has
there been any complaint
anywhere? Shell Nigeria
Exploration and Production
Company and Agip, among
other international oil
companies, and the Nigerian
Navy, up till this moment,
engage people, including
those who are grumbling
now, to supply them patrol
boats. Who has raised any
dust? If anybody has a
reason to partner with us
and we feel he is qualified,
who are we not to give him
jobs?”
Akpobolokemi said many
people kicking against the
contract are afraid they
would be exposed. “The
illegal activities they are
conducting in the maritime
domain are all going to be
exposed, including illegal
bunkering, illegal ship-to-ship
transfer and mystery
discharges that are not
authorised. These are things
people are afraid of.” He
explained that the contract
was not awarded to Tompolo
as an individual, but to
GWVSA, in which the NIMASA
boss admitted the ex-militant
has interest, but which, he
said, had been verified to
have the capability to render
the required service. “The
contract awarded to GWVSA
is a fair deal to Nigerians,” he
maintained.

#CONSENSUS 2015