THE Joint Task Force, JTF, a security outfit in the Niger Delta, always has cause to celebrate minimal results in the convoluted crises in the oil producing zones. The Tom Ateke story, the latest version of it, is a confirmation of the fact that the public is taken for a ride too often.
According to JTF, with powerful people like Senate President David BonaventureMark confirming it, huge caches of arms had been found where Ateke hid them.
Ateke is well known to the JTF. He is said in many quarters to be a creation of the Rivers State Government, which needed him to enforce electoral victories. Each time both parties disagreed, the poor people of Okirika bore the brunt of attacks from security agencies. Ateke is never caught.
The current story would impress only a few. Whatever happened to Soboma George, who the JTF had to fight with gun boats, some months ago? His followers burnt the Central Police Station to release him, following his arrest for a traffic offence. At a time he was wanted for murder. What is going on appears to be a mere change of guards in the fight against militants and cult groups.
We have not been told the sources of Ateke�s arms. Is this unimportant? Would the JTF be able to prosecute Ateke�s collaborators?
Without intending to, the JTF makes a hero of Ateke in the eyes of his admirers and aspiring militants. Where were the security agencies while he was acquiring these arms? When did it become easy to buy and conceal 32 assorted rifles, 28 magazines and ammunition of about 13,694 different calibres? The discovery reportedly shocked the Senate President. What would follow this shock?
It is important to know because each time there is a concerted effort to do something substantial about the blight oil production visits on the Niger Delta region, one security issue or the other overtakes it.
Probably more irritating is the discovery of a pipeline from which Ateke allegedly diverts refined products from the Port Harcourt Refinery for sale at his private jetty. This is another example of the effectiveness of our security agencies.
Anyone who knows anything about the sort of pressure used in evacuating products from the refinery to authorised points would admit that Ateke could not have achieved this feat on his own. Okirika is not located behind the Port Harcourt Refinery. Its products are not transported through any jetty.
For how long did Ateke operate this illegal business? When did our alert security agencies know? The refinery never noticed shortage of the products it manages to refine?
If this story were our domestic home videos, part two could reveal more, particularly why nobody is chasing Soboma George, who is still wanted for burning the Central Police Station, among other offences.