Rot in NDDC: A scare in the conscience of former presidents that Buhari must avoid now
By Uji Abdullahi Iliyasu
Abuja
The wilful mismanagement of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) since its statutory establishment in the year 2000 by the patriotic elected members of the then National Assembly, will continue to be blamed squarely on all past Presidents of Nigeria from year 2000 and will remain a scare in their conscience because of their deliberate refusal and or failure to patriotically and diligently exercise their statutory powers in line with relevant sections of the NDDC Act to ensure the Commission achieved its set objective for the development of the people and region of the crude oil producing areas of the Niger Delta.
This is contained in a press release made available to our correspondent Thursday.
The release is quoted in part: “It is sadly no more news that the Commission which was deliberately established to specially attend to and address the many decades of massive destruction, deprivation and underdevelopment of the Region, has almost become known as “Niger Delta Destruction Commission” in view of the fact that the trillions of naira released to the Commission for the development of the area have been massively looted and diverted by a few unpatriotic Nigerian elites in government and their allies. The recent forensic audit report attests to this sad fact.
“While most people have blamed all others except Nigerian presidents, for this sad state of the Commission in the past twenty-one years, we hold firmly that by virtue of relevant sections of the NDDC Act, the past and incumbent presidents of Nigeria who are also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces are to be held squarely responsible for state of the Commission.
“It is imperative for us to once again draw the attention of the Public particularly to sections 18 to 21 of the NDDC Act which require that the President of Nigeria causes keeping of transparent financial records of the Commission, and preparation and submission of Annual Audit Reports and appointment of Monitoring Committees consisting only of people of proven integrity to constantly monitor the management of Funds and implementation of Projects by the Commission under the leadership of Governing Board duly nominated by the President and screened and confirmed by the Senate of Nigeria. If these were ensured by past Nigerian Presidents, NDDC would have positively turned around the sad state of the Region.
“Regrettably so far, President Buhari has in the past six years allowed himself to be misled to toe the same line as his Predecessors in not allowing the Commission to be properly managed to achieve the Objective it was set up to achieve for the Region and its people.
“We have since year 2015 continued to advise President Buhari against the danger of allowing himself to be misled by Governors of the Oil Producing States as well as some top Chieftains of his APC to appoint so-called illegal Interim Management Team and to prevent the Senate confirmed members of Substantive Board of NDDC to have free access to the Commission to carry out their functions for the benefit of the Region and its people.
“It is still unexplainable why President Buhari would suddenly turn around to prevent the same persons who on October 18, 2019, he nominated to the Senate for confirmation as members of Governing Board of NDDC and appealed to the Senate to “consider and confirm the nominees in the usual EXPEDITIOUS MANNER”, from expeditiously accessing the Commission to carry out their functions?
“Why would he direct some new appointees of other Agencies who were only recently confirmed by the Senate, to immediately resume Duties yet he does the opposite to this NDDC Board members?
“What has the President to personally lose if these his confirmed Nominees of NDDC resume duties at the Commission since year 2019 that they were confirmed by the Senate? Certainly nothing to lose but everything for him to gain as the Niger Delta Region would have developed far beyond expectations and the people will forever be grateful to him the same way the people of the North East Region are grateful to him for allowing and supporting the Senate confirmed members of Board and Management of North East Development Commission to continue to massively develop their North East Region and empower them.
“In conclusion, we once more advise President Buhari to disregard all misleading Advice and Pressures on him not to allow the Senate confirmed members of the Substantive Board of NDDC access to the Commission to resume duty. If he does not immediately put an end to the continued mismanagement of NDDC by a one-man illegal team it will cause him to join his Predecessors as one with NDDC as scare in his conscience for continued destruction, deprivation and underdevelopment of the Oil Producing Niger Delta Region.
“We therefore urge him to immediately allow these confirmed members of the Board to resume duty in order to hurry to make positive difference in the Region in the less than twenty months remaining of his second and last tenure as President of Nigeria.”
Comrade (Engr) Igbini Odafe Emmanuel.
National President,
Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy (VATLAD)