The crisis rocking the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) may have taken another turn as the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC Worldwide on Monday, called on the Nigerian Senate to immediately dissolve the 3-man interim management committee set up by the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio to oversee the Commission till a substantive management board is inaugurated.
Addressing a news conference in Warri, the IYC described the interim management committee as constituted by Akpabio as “illegal,” saying “there’s no provision for an Interim Management Committee under the NDDC Act when the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has already put in motion the process of constituting a new board under the NDDC Act.”
The IYC President, Eric Omare, while calling on the Senate to immediately wade in, threatened that if their demands were not met, they will shutdown the head office of the NDDC.
“If our demands are not met within a reasonable time, we will have no other option than to resort to mass action across the Niger Delta region.”
It would be recalled that Akpabio had earlier last week Tuesday, inaugurated an interim management team headed by Nunieh as the new Acting Managing Director, while Dr. Cairo Ojougboh is the Acting Executive Director, Projects and Chief Ibanga Bassey Etang is the Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration.
According to the Minister, the Committee is expected to be in place to create the required ambience for a hitch-free forensic audit, adding that the inauguration of the Board Members would be put on hold until the forensic exercise is completed.
The New Diplomat had exclusively reported on Monday that the ongoing impasse at the Commission is already making the presidency to mull over the relocation of the NDDC from the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs back to the Office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Also, the report noted that the set up of the interim management team has continued to generate public concern with stakeholders demanding to know whether Akpabio got any administratively backed memo from President Muhammadu Buhari approving an interim management team.
But Akpabio has continued to insist that he has the approval of President Buhari to set up an Interim Committee, stressing that he acted within his bounds. According to him, the Interim team would supervise the planned forensic audit, an action that doesn’t go down well with a number of stakeholders in the region including the IYC who feared that the audit process could be compromised.
IYC had asked the forensic audit to be directly supervised by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The forensic audit ordered by Mr. President should be supervised directly by Mr. President and not by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs because we don’t have confidence that he can supervise the project,” IYC said.
The statement further read in parts: “The NDDC Headquarters in Port Harcourt will be shutdown. We will not allow the illegal contractor called Interim Management Committee to sit down in Port Harcourt and piffer away our resources.”
“The argument for that has been put forward by the proponents of the Interim Management Committee is that the interim management committee is to ensure unhindered forensic audit of the NDDC.
“The argument again is not tenable. It is baseless. The reason is very simple. The Interim Management Committee is headed by Dr. Joy from Rivers State. The same Dr. Joy is the person that the president nominated to represent Rivers State on the Board of the NDDC.
“So, the simple question we are asking is this. If you feel that Dr. Joy as Interim Management Committee members would not interfere with the the forensic audit? What makes you think that Dr. Joy as a member of the substantive board will interfere with the audit? It is illogical.
“This is not the first time in the history of this Country where forensic audit is being carried out. Under the Goodluck administration when there were issues of missing billions of naira in the NNPC, a forensic audit of the NNPC was done which was built by an international accounting firm.
“Again, when the Buhari Government come on board, there were issues with management of arms of funds under Col. Dasuki.
“A special presidential Committee was set up to probe the office of the National Security Adviser. In all these instances, the NNPC or the NSA office were not declared vacant or an interim management committee was not set up to manage those offices.
“There was a substantive board of the NNPC to manage the NNPC while the forensic audit of the NNPC was going on.
”In the case of the NSA, there was a substantive National Security Adviser doing his constitutional function while the forensic audit of the NSA was going on.
“The NDDC has become a patronage agency by those in power. The NDDC was not created to service the political interests of a few people to the detriment of the generality of the Niger Deltans.
“The NDDC creation was watered by the blood of the Ijaw youths, by the blood of Niger Delta youths who died in Kaiama, who died in Port Harcourt. Some of them died in Isoko land and all over the Niger Delta region fighting for the creation of the NDDC with their expectation that the NDDC some of the challenges will be handled.
“As we speak today, Niger Delta Deltans cannot move from Delta to Edo State because the roads have totally collapsed.
“As we speak, you cannot move from Bayelsa to Rivers State because the roads have collapsed. Most of our communities have been overtaken by flood. These are issue that demands urgent response of the NDDC as an intervention agency in the Niger Delta.
”But instead, those in power to put the NDDC in place, which can respond to these challenges, they’re using the NDDC as a tool for political patronage whereas, the North East Development Agency, NEDC that was set up recently by President Buhari have a stable leadership and delivering on its statutory constitutional mandate.”
