- Report Exposes Pondei, Akpabio
To complement the tons of daily reports by the Nigerian media, CNN has exposed the alleged act of corruption by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) on the global stage.
In a revealing CNN report, which has further sparked widespread outrage on the alleged looting-spree and misconducts at the agency, NDDC scholarship beneficiaries in different countries, narrated how life has become grueling for them as what initially appeared to them as a life-changing opportunity has mutated to daily tales of hardship in foreign land.
From struggling to get by everyday, to working menial jobs and living off family and friends, the scholars told CNN they’ve had to confront some of the most embarrassing moments in their lives.
“I am disappointed. It is supposed to be a joyful thing to get a scholarship from your country. Numerous countries give their citizens scholarship… but ours require extra activism to work. This is not how it should be,” Mr. Saba Andrew, an NDDC scholar, studying for Master’s degree in public health at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland told CNN.
He added: “I feel betrayed by Nigeria… I can’t understand how a country can abandon her brightest of minds in a foreign land. I can’t relate to priorities of the country.”
Back home, the agency that sent the students abroad, promising full scholarship has been enmeshed in various corruption allegations as revelations of funds mismanagement; details of the House of Assembly probe; forensic audit, etal have continued to dominate local news headlines for months.
Embarassed by the international protests organized by the students, The New Diplomat had reported that President Muhammadu Buhari in early August ordered the NDDC IMC led by Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei to pay the tuition fees and stipends of the students under the agency’s scholarship scheme.
However, over two weeks after that presidential order, with an assurance to pay the money given by the agency through its Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Charles Odili, the outstanding payment has not been cleared by the NDDC as of the time of this report, the students themselves confirmed.
The scholars said attempts to follow up on the President’s order mandating the NDDC to pay them have failed to yield result as the beneficiaries continue to suffer over the non-payment of the fees which has brought their studies to a halt.
This is as the members of the IMC have been going from one probe panel to another. The investigation into the sundry allegations of fraudulent spendings and mismanagement brought against them continues to unsettle the Nigerian public, who have been calling on the President to sack the IMC members to allow for a cleanup of the monumental mess in the interventionist agency.
The leadership of the NDDC is currently being probed by the National Assembly for allegedly mismanaging N80bn.
Recall among many releases it admitted to, the NDDC management had told the Senate that it released funds to its officials to attend seminars abroad during the lockdown, despite the closure of the international travel space at the time.
Only on Wednesday, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on its own said it has launched an investigation into a new petition bordering on corruption allegations against the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio and the acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Pondei.
