Oil Vandalism: Sylva, EFCC lawyer setting me up — Tompolo

Government Ekpemupolo has revealed how Bayelsa’s APC leader, a lawyer to the EFCC, who is also a party member, and certain defectors to the party in Delta have connived to set him up with the bombings of oil installations in Bayelsa.

Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, explained this in a letter he wrote President Muhammadu Buhari as speculations increase on whether he is the mastermind behind the vandalism that just resumed in the Niger Delta.

“The crux of this letter is to let you know them [ the APC gang-up] they are dubious, mischievous, desperate, pretentious, manipulative and corrupt, therefore do not share the same vision and mission with you,” Tompolo, wrote.

Athough he didn’t name names, the ex-militant leader was close to the bone by describing the said APC leader as the party’s guber candidate in the January 9 election—the description that fits Timi Sylva.

Tompolo further said the party leader had initially approached him to help persuade Buhari to make him chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“I refused to do [this] because of his antecedents, as not a reliable and trustworthy person.” The ex-militant leader said.

“It was thereafter he forced his way into the governorship election of the state, which almost tear the state apart with violence.”

Of the EFCC lawyer, Tompolo dated their relationship some years back, when the lawyer asked him to buy some properties worth billions of naira in Lagos and Abuja.

“I told him that I do not have such money to buy property. Besides, I was not interested in holding property in Abuja and Lagos,” he said.

“Since then he has been looking for any opportunity to drag me into matters I do not know anything about. And this is one of the reasons why I have not appeared in the court because he is not qualified to prosecute me.”

He described the defectors, his kinsmen from the Warri South in Delta, as oil thieves he has been fighting as a patriotic Nigerian.

This is the second letter Tompolo has written since December when the EFCC declared him wanted for not showing up at the commission’s Lagos office to clarify certain issues over a N13-billion land sale to the federal government.

He explained in a December letter that he first took the anti-graft agency to court in October over the matter. The agency didn’t show up. It only appeared in November, asking for adjournment till December, when, according to Tompolo, the commission declared him wanted.

“How can a law-abiding Government declare a man wanted who is in the law courts with them?” He vowed he would only turn himself in when the commission honoured his own suit.

“The truth of the matter is that I do not know anything about the N34 billion EFCC is talking about. First, it was N13 billion issue, now it is 34 billion naira. I am not a signatory to any of the companies mentioned in the said N34 billion case,” he wrote in the latest letter.

The tone of the first letter was a little tough, especially on the agency’s disregard for his earlier suit, the freezing of his account he took in stride, and the conspiracy of the APC leaders luring him to join them.

But his second epistle, ended with “I know that God in His infinite mercy will see me through in this critical moment,” highlighted his patriotism and the need for him to let Buhari know the APC leaders in Bayelsa don’t share same vision as the president.