A joint retreat of the House of Representatives Committees on Host Communities (HOSTCOM) and Public Petitions, in collaboration with HOSTCOM Trustees representing Niger Delta communities, has rejected calls for the decentralisation of the pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited.
The lawmakers described the agitation as “baseless, anti-Niger Delta,” insisting it reflects what they called a “wilful conflation of two legally distinct matters.”
The position was reached at a one-day retreat held on Wednesday in Owerri, Imo State, where stakeholders examined growing concerns around the surveillance arrangement.
At the meeting, participants maintained that the Tantita contract is strictly a private commercial agreement between the Federal Government, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), and the security firm.
They further stressed that it bears no statutory relationship to the Host Communities Development framework under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), noting that both operate on separate legal and institutional foundations.
A resolution adopted at the end of the session stated: “All calls for the ‘decentralisation’ of the said private pipeline surveillance contract are hereby dismissed in the strongest terms as baseless, anti-Niger Delta, and proceeding from a wilful conflation of two legally distinct matters; and all petitions and complaints before this Joint Committee in that regard are hereby formally dismissed.”
The retreat also advised stakeholders interested in community participation in safeguarding oil and gas infrastructure to channel their engagement through the statutory HOSTCOM trustee structures, rather than pursue what it described as “private contractual ambition.”
Providing legal clarification, Professor of Energy and Comparative Environmental Law, S. C. Dike (FGAN), dismissed the agitation as a misunderstanding of basic legal principles.
“When we hear the call for the ‘decentralisation’ of the Tantita contract, what is being demanded in plain English? Nothing more than this: that a private commercial contract between two named parties should be redistributed or cancelled to allow other parties to benefit. That is not decentralisation. That is not community participation. That is a category error. It is the conflation of two legally distinct matters.”
He referenced the doctrine of privity of contract, citing Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v. Selfridge & Company Limited, as well as Federal High Court decisions in Prince Bourdillon Ekine & Ors v. Shell Petroleum and Chief Ndewari & Ors v. Shell Petroleum.
Also speaking, Chairman of the House Committee on HOSTCOM, Hon. Dekor Dumnamene Robinson, said the committee’s position reflected both legal clarity and stakeholder consensus.
“The noise must stop. The PIA has spoken. The Niger Delta has spoken. The host communities have spoken,” he said.
“There is no missing decentralisation, and there is no statutory basis for the so-called ‘decentralisation’ of a private contract.”
The retreat concluded by resolving to pursue an amendment to the Petroleum Industry Act aimed at increasing the statutory Host Communities Development funding requirement from 3 percent to 6 percent.
