Tompolo’s lawyer urges militants to lay down arms, demands resource control

A Lagos-based lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has urged the militants in Nigeria’s Niger Delta to cease warfare and embrace dialogue.

In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Adegboruwa threw his weight behind calls for resource control, peace, and dialogue.

“There is no society ever built on violence. No matter the length of war, dialogue will always ensue,” said Mr. Adegboruwa, lawyer to wanted Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo (popularly known as Tompolo).

“The point has already been made now and the whole world knows about the hypocrisy of the Nigerian elite, including their collaborators from our own very region, in pretending to be attending to our myriad of problems.”

Mr. Adegboruwa’s call came following renewed militants’ attacks on oil and gas installations in the region, with the latest being the destruction of a Chevron oil well by a group known as the Niger Delta Avengers.

The group has launched a string of attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta since February, demanding a sovereign nation for the Niger Delta people.

“If people take the pains to visit our various communities, they will appreciate the cause and struggle for resource control,” Mr. Adegboruwa continued.

“Ayetoro community is almost washed off completely and in places like Awoye, Jinringho, the Obe confederations, Ugbo and even Araromi, we have lost houses, flora and fauna, to rampaging and rapacious oil companies, due mainly to their very crude methods of exploration.”

Mr. Adegboruwa called on the Nigerian government to embrace dialogue that would lead to proper federalism, adding that the current “lopsided arrangement” where government holds on to every item of value in the land would not work.

“We cannot continue to pretend that our nation state is okay, that we will continue to use oil to develop Lagos, Abuja and the other cities of the majority ethnic tribes and expect us to keep quiet in our creeks and swamps. It will never work.”