Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has accused the Federal Government of double standards.
The government had granted permission for the use of arms among some sections of Nigerians to address worsening insecurity in the land.
Akeredolu faulted the government for awarding a pipeline protection contract to a private organization linked to the former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Chief Government Ekpemupolo (aka Tompolo).
He noted that the engagement of private organizations to handle serious security challenges reinforced the belief that the nation’s defense architecture needs an urgent overhaul.
A statement signed by Akeredolu partly reads: “The news concerning the purported award of pipeline contracts to some individuals and private organizations by the Federal Government has been unsettling. More disquieting is the barely disguised hostility displayed against either the idea or the actual establishment of security outfits by some state governments to fill the widening gaps in the scope of security coverage noticeable nationally.
“All attempts to persuade the Federal Government to look, critically, into the current security architecture have been rebuffed, despite the manifest fundamental defects engendered by over-centralization.
“The award of contract to private organizations to protect vandalization of pipelines raises fundamental questions on the sincerity of the advisers of the government on security issues.
“The open and seeming enthusiastic embrace of this oddity, despite the constant and consistent avowal of the readiness by the security agencies, in particular the Navy, to contain the pervasive and deepening crises of breaches and threats to lives and property, attracts the charge of insincerity bordering, deplorably, on dubiety.”
