Will Buhari Liquidate Tompolo’s ‘Navy’?
Former MEND commander under scrutiny again.
Will Buhari Liquidate Tompolo’s ‘Navy’?
By Muhammad Al-Ghazali
One of the most astonishing revelations from President Goodluck Jonathan’s school of leadership so far was his controversial decision to outsource the surveillance of the nation’s coastal waters, and oil pipelines, to companies owned by non-state actors with a criminal past.
Frequent readers of this column will recall the piece I wrote soon after the scandal regarding Government Ekpemupolo’s –more famously referred to as Tompolo–procurement of refurbished gunboats from the Norwegian government through a British third party for the expressed purpose of patrolling our coastal waters, first broke. Interestingly, the scandal has continued to reverberate and generate heated discussions even outside the shores of Nigeria, where, in contrast, there has hardly been a whimper from official circles on the serious irregularities of the deal.
As reported by the online news medium Premium Times last week, the Norwegian Defence Chief, Haakon Bruun-Hansen, an admiral, has apologised to the country’s lawmakers for the sale of a fleet of six decommissioned naval battleships and combat boats to Tompolo through CAS Global – a Britain-based security company to evade a requirement by Norway that arms dealers obtain export license from their country’s foreign affairs ministry.
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Source: allafrica.com
