The Grand Patron of the PBAT Door-to-Door Movement has donated 50 vehicles to the president’s re-election campaign. Enugu and Cross River received 25 each on Monday, at rallies that also inaugurated the movement’s state chapters. The donor is Government Ekpemupolo, better known as Tompolo. He was represented by Kestin Pondi, managing director of Tantita Security Services.
Tantita holds a federal contract to guard crude oil pipelines. The same firm’s leadership now hands out campaign vehicles to state coordinators. Nobody has been asked to explain where the money comes from, and no agency has volunteered to ask. This is the pipeline surveillance economy entering electoral politics in plain sight.
Mr Pondi’s message was patience. He compared the reforms to planting and harvest, and to human gestation. He said the country no longer has fuel queues. Motorists will test that claim themselves, and they will do it long before 2027.
In Cross River, the government pledged 1.5 million votes for the president. The state has 1,928,978 registered voters, so the promise covers 78% of the register. Governor Bassey Otu, represented by his deputy, Peter Odey, tied the target to federal allocation, the Lagos-Calabar highway, the Bakassi deep sea port and the state’s bid to regain oil-producing status. “Support for Tinubu is support for ourselves,” he said. That is an honest sentence, and a revealing one.
In Enugu, the deputy governor, Ifeanyi Ossai, praised the movement for recruiting at ward level on behalf of Governor Peter Mbah. The national coordinator, Sunday Asuku, said there is no vacancy in Aso Rock. That phrase has done heavy lifting in every cycle since 2018.
The historical precedent sits in 2009. The amnesty turned armed grievance in the Niger Delta into a monthly contract. Each contract created a broker with the means to fund politics. The surveillance award of 2022 showed how quickly that leverage turns, when the beneficiary became a defendant and the creeks became a bargaining chip. A man who can shut a pipeline can also open a campaign office. The state chose the second option because the first is expensive.
Fifty vehicles, at a conservative ₦40 million each, come to roughly ₦2 billion. That is not a gift. It is an investment, and investments expect returns. Cross River wants oil-producing status restored. Enugu wants federal roads finished. Tantita wants its contract renewed. All three sit within the gift of one office.
Winners: The PBAT Door-to-Door Movement, the APC chapters in Enugu and Cross River, Tantita and the wider contract brokerage class. Losers: Opposition parties facing state resources plus private militia money, taxpayers who fund the contract, and the voters of Cross River whose votes have been pre-counted.
Bottom Line: The donation is legal, and that is the problem. Without a campaign finance ceiling and a referee, contracts will keep deciding elections before ballots do.