Asari insists Buhari must pay militants for Goodluck's pipeline surveillance deal

FORMER Niger Delta militant leader Mujahid Asari Dokubo has insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari must pay he and other organisations contracted by former president Goodluck Jonathan to protect Nigeria's oil pipelines.

 

In early March, President Jonathan offered former Niger Delta militant leaders and the heads of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC) contracts to safeguard the country's waterways and oil pipelines. Seen by critics as an election sweetener to get their support ahead of presidential polls, the deal involved them taking over the duties from the police and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.

 

So far, however, none of the militants have been paid and already, the OPC has pulled out of the arrangement, with its members no longer guarding pipelines.  However, Mujahid Dokubo has called on President Buhari to pay the contractors for the job, as they were duly appointed by the federal government.

 

However, he conceded that former petroleum minister Diezani Allison-Madueke, did not sign for the payment of the pipeline surveillance contract before she left office. Under the scheme, the pipeline protection contract, which cut across Lagos, Ogun, Bayelsa, Ondo, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States, was executed on March 15 and due to last until to June 15.

 

Mujahid Dokubo said: “Diezani Allison-Madueke did not sign payment for the contract before she left. All across the six states where the contract was awarded none of us were paid and none of the companies were paid.

 

"The federal government should do what is needful by paying the money they owe as the same mandate that was given to Buhari to become president was the same mandate that was given to us in a legal and binding contract. If Buhari is law-abiding and if his government respects the rule of law, the contractual obligations will be followed."

 

He added that the contract was awarded to corporate entities by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and they did not go in as individuals.  Mujahid Dokubo added that he and other contractors would follow due process to get their money from the federal government, appealing to President Buhari not to set a bad precedent where the government fails to pay contractors who had executed its contracts.

 

“The same way they give contracts to people to lift oil, the same way they give Julius Berger contracts to build roads, the same way they give people contracts to build houses is the same way the pipeline surveillance contracts were given to us. However, they are not paying for the work done, which  is against the law of the land and paying us our contract money is the right thing Buhari ought to do,” Mujahid Dokubo said.