The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Friday summoned the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mr Mele Kyari, over the N48bn surveillance contract in the Niger Delta region.
The NNPC had in 2022 awarded the N48bn surveillance contract to a firm linked to a former commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo.
The firm is expected to carry out the N4billion per month contract that covers Delta, Ondo, Imo, Rivers and some parts of Bayelsa State, in collaboration with other stakeholders in the communities that host the oil pipelines.
The Senate committee summoned the NNPC boss following a petition by the Isoko community, alleging that their young men were not carried along in the multi-billion naira project.
The Isoko people, under the auspices of Interested Isoko Youth Groups, through a petition sent to the Senate on their behalf by Stanley Okonmah, stated that they were completely marginalised in the N48bn surveillance contract award.
Specifically, the people urged the Senate to look into the matter, and urged the Minister of Petroleum Resources and the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited to correct the anomaly.
They wanted the NNPC to award the pipeline surveillance contract to a company to be chosen by stakeholders of Isoko nation.
The chairman of the Senate panel, Senator Ayo Akinyelure, said the GCEO of the NNPC was being summoned to the Senate to assure Isoko people that the agency would do the needful to avoid economic sabotage by the aggrieved youths.
Akinyelure appealed to the NNPC boss to make himself available before his panel on January 25 to avoid any form of hostility in the Niger Delta region.