Former Minister of Communications, Maj. Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju (retd), has urged the Federal Government to provide more security defence for oil-rich regions, News About Nigeria reports.
He stated this while reacting to the killing of 16 soldiers in Okuama, Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State, last Thursday.
He noted that the events surrounding the nation’s high volumes of oil deposits in the Western Delta were worrisome.
Tajudeen added that the consequences of collateral damages resulting from gang warfare between the two warring communities of Okuama and Okoloba could lead to further serious consequences of collateral damages to national assets as a result of this unwarranted conflict.
He further noted that non-state actors should be called their true identities and not dressed up nicely with a patronising name.
According to him, they are militants, thugs, and hoodlums and are not different from bandits. He added that their transition has always been from thuggery and militancy to terrorism, maintaining that that was how Boko Haram started.
“That event in Okuama gives me an unsettled mind about events surrounding the nation’s high volumes of oil deposits in the Western Delta. The consequences of collateral damages resulting from gang warfare between the two warring communities of Okuama and Okoloba could lead to further serious consequences of collateral damages to our national assets as a result of this unwarranted conflict.
“I believe strongly that the federal government should reconsider a new security protection template for our oil rich region, not on a piecemeal basis but for the entire oil belt in the country,” he stated.
He, therefore, maintained that the National Security Adviser, NSA and the Military High Command should come out with a new Creek defence plan and policy to include the crude oil zone, oil platform, the offshore assets and resources to support them by laws, regulations and the Constitution.
