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Niger Delta ex-agitator and self-styled General Endurance Amagbein has cautioned the leadership of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) against politicising the plight of the Niger Delta people over issues of renewal of pipeline surveillance contracts.

Amagbein expressed displeasure over the actions of the IYC leaders who recently took a protest to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), demanding the sack of Mr Bayo Ojulari, the Group Chief Executive Offcer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd).

The ex-militant, in a statement on Saturday and made available in Abuja, said Mr Ojulari was carefully chosen by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take the nation’s oil and gas industry to the next level.

He accused the IYC of derailing from its core mandate and delving into partisan oil surveillance politics.

According to him, the IYC’s call for Mr Ojulari’s sack is as a result of his refusal to compromise policy standards of NNPC Ltd in its operations contrary to popular expectations.

While aligning with the IYC on the call for reforms in the NNPCL, especially in the area of decentralisation of surveillance contracts amongst stakeholders in the various Niger Delta states over their indigenous territories, Amagbein condemned the call for the outright sack of Ojulari.

He described the call as “premature and political.”

Amagbein, popularly known as Adaka Boro the Second, said, contrary to the claims made by the IYC, the administration of President Tinubu has been fair to the people of the Niger Delta, and has appointed key sons of the region into juicy national offices.

According to him, even if anyone will pretend to be ignorant of the love of the president towards the Ijaw people, they cannot erase the fact that the sons of Niger Delta occupy top key sectors in the institutions established for the development and peace of the Niger Delta.

“Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum (Oil); Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, MD/CEO of NDDC, and Chief Dennis Otuaru, the Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, are all Ijaw people, but sadly, nobody remembers this to thank Mr President.

“It is so said that oil politics in the Niger Delta has infiltrated into the affairs of the IYC and its leaders have allowed surveillance contractors to direct policy statements of the youth body.

“The IYC triumphs in its core values on the straddle of the Niger Delta development agenda, as the founding fathers laid out their ideas on non-partisan services to the region through people-oriented programmes.

“In the past, the tradition of the IYC is to precede every of its actions that are considered sensitive with significant national importance with wide consultation of major stakeholders in the region, but this cherished tradition was ignored in their call for the sack of Mr Bayo Ojulari, the Group Chief Executive Offcer of NNPC Ltd.

“It is very obvious that the IYC has derailed into partisan politics, thereby aligning their activities with surveillance contractors who have lost their goodwill over their surveillance activities in the last few years.

“It is never too late to go back to their roots anchored on the collective interest of the people.

“The founding fathers of the IYC knew the priceless contributions of stakeholders to the struggle, and that was why they always consulted with them before making any moves.

“But today, the efforts of the stakeholders who are the foundations of the Ijaw struggle are being overlooked, and that is why they have gone astray.

“When Chris Ekiyor was the president of the IYC, he succeeded because he never neglected the stakeholders, and he was always consulting them before doing anything, and his administration recorded a huge success.

“It is the sacrifices of the stakeholders that have brought about peace in the Niger Delta, and that is why the IYC now has a voice, and these sacrifices should not be overlooked.

“Anything that has to do with the Niger Delta requires serious and careful thoughts in other to not spark out flames, because as stakeholders, we know the sacrifices we are paying to maintain the peace and security of the region.

“Like the last presidential elections, it was the efforts of myself and Alhaji Asari Dokubo that brought about peaceful elections in the Niger Delta, and this we did by galvanising our supporters and engaging with other stakeholders of the region to ensure a smooth process.

“And that is what I want the IYC to do – to know the mind of stakeholders before doing anything; so that they can have the full support of the people.

“President Tinubu made wide consultations and made an informed decision in the appointment of Mr Bayo Ojulari.

“And rather than causing distractions, I, General Endurance Amagbein, encourage stakeholders to support President Tinubu’s development plans already laid out in progress for the Niger Delta region.”

“However, I want to advice the IYC to shun partisan politics, especially oil politics in the Niger Delta, and they should not be seen to be carrying out the agenda of certain surveillance contractors in the region,” Amagbein concluded.

It would be recalled that the IYC, during the Abuja protest, accused Ojulari of non-performance, financial mismanagement, systemic neglect and administrative failure, including exclusion of Niger Deltans from key oil and gas decision-making processes.

It also alleged Ojulari’s failure to deliver visible benefits to the Niger Delta despite the region being the mainstay of Nigeria’s oil wealth.