For the sake of equity and fairness, and to avoid regular accusation of discrimination, a group, the Niger Delta Elders’ Forum has called on President Muhammedu Buhari to give the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), the same attention he is currently giving to the North East Development Commission (NEDC) by urgently inaugurating the Board of the Commission in line with its enabling Act, without further delay.
The group in a statement signed by the National President, Chief Tonye Ogbogbula, called on the President to inaugurate the Board of the NDDC and allow it to operate in compliance with the Act which set the Commission up just the same way the NEDC is currently being motivated to fast-track the development of states that constitute the North East region.
The statement read in part: “Whereas the President Buhari’s government complies with the North East Development Commission (NEDC) enabling Act and expeditiously inaugurated a representative board comprising members from its North East six constituent states since inception in 2017, it conversely permitted a subterfuge forensic audit of NDDC (which lasted for over two years) as a guise to delay the inauguration of NDDC substantive board that guarantees equitable representation, rather authorizing illegal interim management committees/sole administrator contraptions, which have been administering the Commission in breach of NDDC Act.”
The Elders group reminded that it is more than five months now he promise in June 24, 2021, to inaugurate the board of the Commission immediately he received the report of the forensic audit, calling on the President to make good his promise.
‘‘Based on the mismanagement that had previously bedeviled the NDDC, a forensic audit was set up and the result is expected by the end of July, 2021. I want to assure you that as soon as the forensic audit report is submitted and accepted, the NDDC Board will be inaugurated”, President Buhari had assured the leadership of Ijaw National Congress, INC, led by it’s President, Prof. Benjamin Okaba sometime last year.
The group further recalled “that the report of the forensic audit of NDDC was submitted by Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to President Buhari since September 2, 2021, but more than five months after submission of the forensic the report, there is increasing tension in the Niger Delta region over the delay in inaugurating members of the board of the Commission.”
“This is rather a strange pattern by a regime that touts adherence to rule of law as its mantra, that in the six and a half years tenure of the Buhari Presidency, NDDC has operated with a substantive Board for only two years, 2016 to 2018″, the Elders’ Forum noted.
It drew the attention of President Buhari to the situation prevalent in the North East Development Commission, which was established and modelled after the NDDC, adding that the NEDC has since 2017 when it was established been carrying out the statutory role it was set.up to do.
The group lamented that while the NEDC with its substantive board was benefitting its mandate region with thousands of housing units, the NDDC has not initiated and completed any project since October 2019 when an illegal interim management committee took over the NDDC.
It further noted that ,”the enabling Acts establishing NDDC and NEDC state clearly that they should be governed by substantive Boards nominated by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and approved by the Senate.”
“Conversely, in the Niger Delta region, the NDDC has not initiated and completed any project since October 2019 when the illegal interim management committees/ sole administrator contraptions were imposed on the region, yet they have administered a combined 2019 and 2020 budgets of N799 Billion approved by the National Assembly.
“The Senate probe of NDDC in June/July 2020 revealed the unending infractions in the Commission since October 2019 without due process and no projects to show for the huge amount expended.
“The report and resolutions of the Senate on the financial recklessness of the NDDC Interim Management Committee (IMC), which was adopted unanimously detailed the humongous illegalities that have been going on at the NDDC and laid out fraudulent and questionable payments of over N81.5 billion by the Interim Management Committee, a clear mismanagement of the resources of the NDDC”, the Forum noted.
Ogbogbula further noted that the threats and agitations rocking the Niger Delta recently was due to “the frustrations of a people denied of their rights of effective representation in a commission funded by their patrimony.”
It would be recalled that stakeholders of NEDC recently met to brainstorm on the promotion of stability and fast-tracked development of the master plan of the mandate region.
