The federal government may have to look beyond the Nigerian shores in order to apprehend wanted Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo.
Sunday Sun confirmed at the weekend that the militant kingpin left the country at night in a boat with the assistance of a friendly neighbouring country.
Last week, Sunday Sun broke the story of his escape from the country. But this was roundly disputed by the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta, which said Tompolo was still in the country and vowed to smoke him out of his hideout.
Speaking to journalists, Coordinator of the JTF Media Centre, Lt. Col. Rabe Abubakar, faulted the report, saying it was meant to deceive the country.
Our reporter, however, learnt through a source close to the fugitive leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that Tompolo actually escaped on a Sunday, precisely on May 17, two days after the military commenced aerial bombardment of his Camp Five in Okerenkoko and other Ijaw communities in Gbaramatu Kingdom in the Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.
According to the source, some of his very close and reliable allies reportedly prevailed on him to leave the country when they saw the extent of destruction in the communities and the number of human casualties.
“Tompolo did not want to leave.
But after a meeting on Saturday (May 16) of the high command of one of the militant groups, it was collectively agreed that he leaves the stage for now because of the innocent people that had been affected. It was a sacrifice he had to make,” the source said on the telephone.
Sunday Sun also learnt that the notorious militant leader did not disguise while fleeing and that he went with his travelling documents to the “sympathetic neighbouring country” from where he moved on.
The source refused to disclose his current destination for obvious reasons but maintained that Tompolo was far from the country and that anyone looking for him in any of the Ijaw communities was only interested in visiting suffering on innocent indigenes.
MEND also refused to comment on this development when Sunday Sun sought its views.
It instead said there was no crisis within the insurgent group following the reported acceptance of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s amnesty offer by one of its commanders, Boyloaf.
The reported acceptance by Boyloaf, MEND insisted, was a dummy sold to the JTF to “put it off guard” before last Tuesday night’s attack on the Chevron Otunana flow station in Delta State.
“Boyloaf’s public announcement to receive the “amnesty” was a strategy to put the JTF off guard before the Otunana attack and it worked.
“This was a military strategy that worked for us. It is normal to do that in war situations. The Japanese gave the Americans the impression all was well and few days later Pearl Harbor was attacked,” its spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo, said in an electronic mail response.
On JTF’s claim about Tompolo, MEND said the military outfit was “chasing shadows.”
“The JTF is chasing shadows for all we know. His (Tompolo’s) location is irrelevant in this day and age of communication technology. As long as he is not in their custody, he remains a foe you do not want to have.”