Gathering Storm Over Delay in NDDC Board Inauguration

Disappointed by the Federal Government’s apparent betrayal of trust by delaying on President Muhammadu Buhari’s unequivocal promise to inaugurate NDDC Board upon receipt of the Commission’s forensic audit report, there is a build-up of agitation and threats that do not bode well for the fragile peace that currently pervades the otherwise volatile Niger Delta region, where violent disruption of oil production in 2016 drove the nation’s economy into recession, writes Nseobong Okon-Ekong

Contrary to the firm promise of President Muhammadu Buhari on June 24, 2021, when he received the leadership of Ijaw National Congress in Aso Rock, to inaugurate the Board of NDDC upon completion and submission of the report of the forensic audit of the Commission, mum has been the word since September 2, 2021 when Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio submitted the report to the President.

President Buhari promised the nation on the 24th day of June 2021, while receiving the Ijaw National Congress at the State House in Abuja that the NDDC Board would be inaugurated as soon as the forensic audit report is submitted and accepted.

The President said: ‘‘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.”

The report of the forensic audit of NDDC has since been submitted by Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to President Buhari on September 2, 2021. More than one month after submission of the forensic audit report, there is increasing tension in the Niger Delta region over the delay in inaugurating members of the board of the Commission.

According to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Chairman of South-south Governors’ Forum, “when our people do agitate, we believe that they are doing so in the right direction.”

Presently, across the length and breadth of the Niger Delta region there are unending calls, demands and peaceful agitations of youths, men and women, political and traditional leaders and civil society organisations that the inauguration of the board of NDDC will promote and sustain peace, equity and fairness, transparency and accountability, good governance and rapid development and transformation of the Niger Delta Region, and douse the tension of militancy as well as curtail the menace of insecurity in the region.

However, the brewing storm in the Niger Delta region is gaining momentum each passing day that the Federal Government fails to keep to its promise to inaugurate the NDDC Board having received the forensic audit report since September 2, 2021.

Only last week, former militant leader, Chief Kingsley Muturu, warned the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to stop playing politics and facilitate the inauguration of the substantive board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.

Muturu, a peace ambassador and Delta state chairman, Phase 2 of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) gave the warning at Bomadi, Delta state, saying that Akpabio was playing on the intelligence and strength of Niger Delta youths. According to him, and as was widely reported in the media “Our critical examination of Akpabio and his politics shows that he’s playing on the strength and intelligence of Niger Delta youths in his tactical delay in inaugurating NDDC’s substantive board, despite the series of calls. We have given him enough time according to his earlier plea to allow him put things in order, but that time has already elapsed without Akpabio showing any sign of compliance with his promise. This deliberate act of Akpabio is certainly politicking with fortunes of Niger Deltans for personal gains, and we have decided that it will not be condoned by ex-agitators whose agitations facilitated birth of the Commission.

Muturu, therefore, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to end the nightmare by ordering Akpabio to do the needful for the inauguration of the board without further delay, “else all blames should be heaped on Akpabio if the situation gets out of hand”.

In an interview with a national daily on October 17, 2021, the President of Ijaw National Congress (INC), Professor Benjamin Okaba, wondered what is holding President Buhari from inaugurating the NDDC Board which he had promised to do on receipt of the audit report. Said he, “the President has the report, so what is stopping him from inaugurating the board? There are a few collaborators who use politics and praise-singing to attract attention. I’m happy with the kind of responses and the backlash they have got from the Ijaw people.”

Speaking on behalf of the Ijaw people, Professor Okaba recounted that “from the outset, we did mention that the forensic audit (although it’s a normal and usual necessity for every organisation) should not be a reason why the NDDC should run without a functional board. That has been our position and we gave examples of some other organisations that require some form of clean-up or audit.”

The INC President stated that the Ijaw people and the Niger Delta region however gave the Buhari regime the benefit of doubt as the Federal Government “insisted the audit needed to be done before the board could be inaugurated and we decided to place confidence in the Federal Government’s plea for time.”

On the reported alleged irregularities and lack of due process in NDDC since October 2019 when the interim management/sole administrator contraptions have been in place, Professor Okaba stated thus: “We are also not particularly happy about the silence on the over N600bn payments made for emergency contracts; the over 1,000 persons who were allegedly employed in the NDDC between January and July, 2020 without due process. We are also aware that the 2020 budget was passed in December and N400bn was voted for the NDDC but the commission had spent over N190bn before the budget was passed. So, what happened to the Procurement Act? These are issues.”

Also on October 17, 2021, youths of Niger Delta threatened to stage a peaceful protest in Abuja, if after one week the Federal Government did not satisfactorily explain why a Sole Administrator was still running the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.

The youths under the auspices of 21st Century Youths of Niger Delta and Agitators with Conscience, 21st CYNDAC, said they were taken aback that after the conclusion and submission of the forensic audit of the commission, the substantive board had not been inaugurated.

Spokesperson of the group, Izon Ebi, said: “After an exhaustive meeting and deliberation held today (October 17), the 21st CYNDAC, other like minds and youth organisations have resolved to ask some pertinent questions and if answers are not given after seven days, we will be forced to come down to Abuja in our numbers for a peaceful protest to ask who is benefiting from the continued running of NDDC by a sole administrator after the conclusion and submission of the forensic audit of the commission.

“Who is benefitting from the bribery allegations of Ghana -must-go bags of dollars and N5 billion alleged by militant group? In whose benefit is it that the substantive board is not inaugurated to consolidate on the gains of the forensic audit? These questions need urgent attention and answers because it is more of politics than the right intentions of President Muhammadu Buhari. The president should endeavour to do the right thing as a legacy by inaugurating the substantive board of NDDC immediately because the streets of Niger Delta are bubbling with bogus allegations of using monies meant for developmental purposes for bribery and political brinkmanship.”

According to the group, “The forensic audit of NDDC which is more or less the brain child of Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, has been concluded, therefore, he should come out clean with his plans and why the substantive board of the commission has not been inaugurated after weeks of the submission of the forensic audit report to the Federal Government. The minister should also go a step further to clarify and uphold his integrity on the bogus allegations of bribery and corruption leveled against him from the start of the forensic audit to this moment because the allegations are too weighty to be ignored if the forensic audit should be taken seriously.”

Earlier in the month of October, Niger Delta monarch, King Monday Whiskey, who is the Ovie of Idjerhe Kingdom, Ethiope West, Delta state, warned of an impending crisis in the region maintaining that it was illegal for the federal government to continue to run the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) with a sole administrator. The monarch noted that the federal government no longer has any justification to delay the inauguration of the already screened and confirmed board by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He argued that since the alibi had always been the need to allow the conclusion of work by the forensic auditors, the current leadership of the agency should give way to the one allowed by the law setting up the NDDC.

Whiskey stressed that he wasn’t surprised that two months after the release of the NDDC report, nothing had been done about it, insisting that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Godswill Akpabio, who he said was an interested party in the matter, ought not to oversee its overhaul.

He said: “I knew from the outset that the good intention of Mr. President will be turned upside down and that nothing good will come out of the forensic audit, and that the audit was a scam. It was a delay tactics to rob the people of the Niger Delta of their resources and deny them of the needed development. That was very clear from the very outset.

Said King Monday Whiskey, “when the president spoke and said, once the audit forensic auditor submitted the report, the board will be inaugurated, some of us used our position as leaders to calm a lot of youths in the area.

“Now, the auditors, whether they did a bad job or not, they have submitted what they call a forensic audit and the actual people who did a lot of the damage, the governors, the senators, none of them is mentioned. They have submitted it for about two months now, and nothing has been done. To avert crisis the region, Whiskey stressed that the board which was nominated, screened and confirmed by the lawmakers and were only waiting for inauguration, before the current crisis should be allowed to takeover.”

Whiskey noted that the absence of a board was affecting the operation of the NDDC, because it was being run with a sole administrator, which he likened to running a country with one man. He emphasised that the APC government by its action was de-marketing the party in the Niger Delta because there’s nobody to build political goodwill for the party, going into an election year.

Making a passionate appeal to avert crisis, the Monarch stated that “What my kingdom is contributing to the Nigeria’s oil resource, we have not got anything in return. We keep contributing to the centre and in return we get nothing because one individual is holding everybody’s torch. My prayer is that this whole attitude should not lead to a crisis where traditional rulers will be invited because some of us will speak our minds and will tell Mr. President that we told him from the outset that this man is an interested party,” Whiskey noted.

The angst, agitations and pleas of the Niger Delta people and its leaders – the South-south Governors Forum, Ijaw National Congress (INC), Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), South-east South-south Professionals Forum (SESSPF) etc capture the frustrations of a people denied of their rights of effective representation in a commission funded by their patrimony.

The loudly stated positions of Niger Delta leaders capture the mood of the Niger Delta people, and may signal an indication of a new series of avoidable disruptive agitations akin to the 2016 disruptions which the country can ill-afford presently.

Now that the Forensic audit report has been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari since September 2, 2021, the President should do well to heed the call of the Niger Delta leaders and other stakeholders, comply with the law setting up NDDC, and also fulfill his own promise of June 24, 2021, and inaugurate the board to manage the Commission for the benefit of the people of nine Niger Delta states.