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Government Ekpemupolo, the former Niger Delta militant leader known as Tompolo who chairs pipeline-protection company Tantita Security Services Nigeria Ltd., has kept buying shares in Fidelity Bank Plc and now leads the lender's shareholder register, according to a column published Sunday.
The column in a Lagos newspaper linked Ekpemupolo to the purchase of about 1.14 billion Fidelity Bank shares, roughly 2.3% of the bank, in a block sale in July 2025. The buyer was not named when the deal went through. "If reports are to be believed, he has continued to buy and now leads the shareholder register," the column said.
Ekpemupolo, former presidential candidate Peter Obi and the bank have all denied the claims about the bank's ownership, the column said, while arguing that the denials do not square with the documents.
A succession fight
The claims come as Fidelity Bank prepares to replace Managing Director Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, whose term ends on Dec. 31. The column cited reports that Ekpemupolo wants a say in who succeeds her, and said a chief executive's exit "is a decision any large shareholder would want to influence."
Obi, the former Anambra state governor and 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, was a pioneer major shareholder of the bank and has faced claims that he still holds a hidden stake in Fidelity.
Fidelity Bank's own filings do not settle the question. The lender counted 525,912 shareholders and 50.2 billion shares at Dec. 31, 2025, and said no investor held as much as 5% of the bank. A 2.3% stake would fall below that disclosure line, as would several smaller holdings bought in separate names.
The Tantita contract
Ekpemupolo's business rise rests on Tantita, which has guarded oil pipelines in the Niger Delta for Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. since 2022. The company is one of three private firms on NNPC's pipeline-surveillance contract, alongside Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd. and Abokus Integrated Security Services Ltd.
The contract has drawn legal challenges. A group of Niger Delta contractors sued NNPC and Tantita at the Federal High Court in Abuja in 2024, alleging the work was awarded without due process. In April, Justice Bello Kawu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court refused a separate request to stop NNPC from renewing the surveillance contracts, ruling that "no court of law should grant an order capable of plunging the nation into economic crisis." The court ordered that there be no gap in operations while the main suit is heard.
Tantita has expanded beyond pipeline patrols. It has announced plans to deploy drones to protect national assets, has built housing for soldiers at the Effurun barracks in Delta state, and has campaigned publicly against illegal refining, at one point alleging that most of the diesel sold in Nigeria was illegally refined.
From the creeks to the boardroom
Ekpemupolo, who led fighters in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, accepted the federal government's amnesty in 2009. His Tantita contract made him one of the most powerful private players in Nigeria's oil security business, and federal officials have credited the company with helping lift crude output by cutting theft on major trunk lines.
The board's choice of Onyeali-Ikpe's successor, the column said, will be the clearest sign of who holds sway at the bank.
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