More than two years after the Senate screened and confirmed a list of persons nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari, for the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the substantive board is yet to be inaugurated to execute the vision of the interventionist body in accordance to the Act that established it.
Worried by the undue delay in inaugurating the substantive board of the Commission, the Senate under the leadership of the Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan, has urged the inauguration of the 15-member list which it screened and confirmed on October 29, 2019.
The Senate president who gave this indication when he played host to The Sun Publishing Limited management team in Abuja recently, said that it was time for the NDDC to be run properly for it to fulfill its mandate as an interventionist agency for the development of the Niger Delta region.
It would be recalled that the President Buhari, in October, 2019, submitted a list of 15 nominees to the Senate for screening and confirmation for the substantive governing board of the Commission. The Senate had screened and confirmed the nominees on October 30, 2019 but shortly after that, it was gathered that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Godswill Akpabio prevailed on the President to set up a 5-man Interim Management Committee, IMC, with Prof. Kemebradikumo Daniel Pondei as Interim chairman. Akpabio swore in the interim body, charging them to cooperate with the forensic audit team.
In December 2020, Akpabio replaced the IMC with Mr. Effiong Akwa as a sole-administrator, claiming an Abuja Federal High Court injunction, just as he stated that the tenure of the sole administrator would end with the forensic audit exercise.
The forensic audit report was submitted to President Buhari on September, 2021 but since then, nothing has happened in terms of inaugurating the screened and confirmed board of the Commission, rather, Mr. Effiong Akwa continues to act as the sole-administrator of the interventionist body.
The New Diplomat investigation reveals that, although Akpabio wanted the Senate to screen a new list of nominees for the board, the Senate has continued to maintain that they have finished the job of screening members for the board, adding that the members have to be inaugurated in line with the Act setting the Commission up.
However, responding to enquiry on the board of the NDDC, the President of the Senate, called for the inauguration of the governing board, adding that since the forensic audit has been concluded and report submitted, the Commission must be rejigged to run properly.
Lawan was quoted as saying that “This is an opportunity for me to say we should also deal with the situation in the NDDC. It is long overdue. This is one interventionist agency that should be run much more efficiently. I believe now that the forensic audit is over, we should have the NDDC run properly.
“Let there be full-fledged management and the governing board so that our people in the Niger Delta will continue to get the attention that made the NDDC to be established in the first place”, he said.
