TOMPOLO vs JOHN TOGO: The Untold Creek Inferno That Nearly Split the Niger Delta in Two (2009–2010)

In the Niger Delta, power isn’t negotiated  it is seized, defended, and often baptized in blood. And for decades, no name has dominated those swampy battlegrounds like Government Ekpemupolo, known everywhere simply as Tompolo. He is the man the creeks fear, respect, and ultimately obey.

But between 2009 and 2010, even his throne trembled.

In that brief, violent period, a challenger emerged. A man carved from the same mud, shaped by the same tide, raised from the same Oporoza roots. A brother-turned-enemy whose rebellion would ignite one of the darkest chapters in Delta history.

His name was General John Togo.When Brothers Became Rivals

John Togo born Prince Togunemi Amacuo  was no ordinary militant.

Dreadlocked, charismatic, ruthless, and fearless even among men who feared nothing, he was once a trusted MEND commander under Tompolo’s control.

But the 2009 Presidential Amnesty Programme created a crack that soon became a canyon.Tompolo accepted the amnesty.Togo rejected it.

To him, the amnesty was not peace it was betrayal. As Abuja’s billions began flowing and Tompolo’s influence soared through federal contracts and political alliances, Togo saw the struggle slipping into the hands of politicians.

He accused Tompolo of selling out the Ijaw cause for pipelines, contracts, and proximity to power.

And with that, he broke away and formed the Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF).

In one chilling recording, he warned that Tompolo had become “too fat on government money to remember the struggle,” vowing that the creeks “would taste blood again.”

Thus began what locals still call the Two-Year Night.

2009–2010: The Creek War Nobody Saw Coming

The Niger Delta sank into a shadow war almost entirely hidden from the outside world.

Togo’s men struck first:

Attacking surveillance boats

Ambushing Tompolo-aligned camps

Seizing creeks and fuel routes

Tompolo retaliated with calculated brutality:

Midnight raids River ambushes Silent disappearances Villages fled in fear.Oil companies fortified their sites.Chiefs went into hiding.And fishermen avoided dawn trips because of what floated in the water  bodies, bound,dismembered, drifting with the tide.

Togo fueled the flames with defiant videos: a cigar in one hand, AK-47 in the other. In one clip, he dared to say he was ready to “drink Tompolo’s blood in the creeks.” No militant had ever spoken that way about Tompolo and lived long enough to brag about it.

This war was personal.Both men were from Oporoza.

Both commanded loyalty.

Both controlled weapons, boats, and secret creek routes.

The region sat on a powder keg.

The Fall of John Togo:

    As political winds shifted and Goodluck Jonathan’s government began to weaken, the tension escalated. Buhari’s impending return in 2015 only heightened the pressure.

The Joint Task Force (JTF) received quiet authorization to remove “destabilizing elements.”

Tompolo disappeared from public view.

But the real target was John Togo.

In mid-2010, Togo’s main camp came under a deadly, coordinated attack some swear it was purely military, while others whisper that Tompolo’s elite fighters guided the operation from the shadows.

For hours, explosions lit up the mangroves.

When it ended, the camp was ashes.

John Togo vanished.No body.No confirmation.Only silence.Within months, NDLF collapsed.By 2011, Togo’s name was scrubbed from public talk.The creeks do not bury men like him  they swallow them into legend

  The Rise of a Volcano:

With Togo gone, Tompolo’s rise became unstoppable.More contracts.More political reach.More loyalty.More fear.

By 2025, Tompolo wasn’t just a militant figure  he was a billionaire power broker with private jets, national influence, and a vast surveillance empire woven through the Delta’s waterways.

And the creeks learned a truth they still whisper today: In the Niger Delta, you may fight Abuja and survive.You may fight oil companies and get rich. You may even fight the military and escape into the mangroves.But you do not fight Tompolo and expect a second chapter.

John Togo burned like wildfire bright, brief, and violent.

Tompolo absorbed that fire… and became a volcano.

Credit: Insta Bullets