Group, Analyst Decry Delay in NDDC Board Inauguration

Anti-corruption group, Act for Positive Transformation Initiative (APTI), and renowned TV Analyst, Babajide Otitoju, have joined the ranks of authentic stakeholders to decry the delay of President Muhammadu Buhari to inaugurate the substantive Board of NDDC. According to them the ongoing illegality of administering NDDC with interim managements/sole administrator contraptions is in breach of the NDDC Act establishing the Commission, and thereby deprives the nine constituent states of the Niger Delta region fair and equitable representation in the running of NDDC.

Speaking on TVC News magazine programme, “Journalists’ Hangout”, the panelists wondered why Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), North East Development Commission (NEDC) which is modelled after NDDC, and other Federal Government agencies and commissions should be operating with governing boards while NDDC is being administered in the breach of the law, the NDDC Act.

According to Babajide Otitoju, journalist who was awarded political analyst of 2019, the delay in inaugurating the NDDC board shows that the government is not prepared to do anything about the reported ongoing corruption in NDDC. “If we were prepared, by now we would have put a board in place just as the President (Buhari) had promised. By now a board would be in place. Why are we allowing Senator Akpabio to literally be running that place as if it belongs to him? He came up with the idea of Interim Management Committee (IMC) that is not known to the Act setting up the NDDC. He came up with it and he got away with it. Later on he came up with the idea of a sole administrator. The sole administrator is from his state – Akwa Ibom, he as Minister (Niger Delta affairs) is from the same Akwa Ibom state and the Presidential aide (Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari) on Niger Delta, Senator Ita Enang is also from Akwa Ibom. So other Niger Delta states are effectively shut out of the running of the place (NDDC).”

The analyst recalled that “President Buhari promised to get a board inaugurated. That promise has not been kept. So why are you surprised that we are hearing this kind of stories from NDDC?”

On the 24th of June 2021, while receiving the leadership of the Ijaw National Congress in Aso Rock, Abuja, President Buhari promised that the NDDC Board will be inaugurated once the forensic audit report was submitted.

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.” That report has been submitted to the President since six months ago, on September 2, 2021 yet the President is yet to fulfil his promise to inaugurate the NDDC Board.

On the ongoing probe of the NDDC by the Public Accounts Committee of the Senate, Otitoju stated that the legislative arm should rather be pushing President Buhari to implement the recommendations of its (Senate) probe of NDDC in June/July 2020, which indicted the then illegal IMC, and recommended the inauguration of a substantive Board for the Commission.

The Senate probe of NDDC Interim Management Committee (IMC) in June/July of 2020 revealed how the IMC blew N81.5 billion in just a couple of months on fictitious contracts, frivolities, and in breach of extant financial and public procurement laws. The Senate therefore recommended that the IMC should refund the sum of N4.923 Billion to the Federation Account, and that the IMC should be disbanded, while the substantive board should be inaugurated to manage the Commission in accordance with the law.

Babajide Otitoju therefore urged President Buhari to implement the recommendations of the Senate in the June/July 2020 probe of NDDC. According to him, “I looked at the recommendations and I found those recommendations good enough to be implemented.

Otitoju recalled the scandals in the National assembly probe of IMC in June/July 2020, and after that, “Akpabio, knowing that particular interim management committee (IMC) has been blotted, has been disgraced, has been discredited before Nigerians, he then did the fast thing to go again to get Presidential approval to have a Sole Administrator. Again they (President Buhari) pandered to him and allowed him to have a sole administrator, and he has refused to inaugurate the Board. So whatever happened to the fight against corruption?”

On his part, Head, Directorate of research and strategy, of Act for Positive Transformation Initiative (APTI), Mr. Kolawole Johnson stated that “You have the North East Development Commission (NEDC) today functioning with a Board in place; NNPC has been accused of corruption, yet today functioning with a proper board in place. So you ask, what exactly has made the case of NDDC different that they have refused to inaugurate a substantive board despite the fact that is what the law states.”

APTI leader also noted that “when you have a board in place, there are benefits. The entire nine states of the Niger Delta region are supposed to be represented, one per state, and then you have the oil companies themselves who are supposed to have one representative on the board, being the ones providing the largest funds to run this Commission. Today none of them is there. You just have one man, a sole administrator, controlled by the Minister of Niger Delta, and whatsoever they sign goes. There is no check, nobody is checking,(there is no executive director of projects, no executive director of finance), only one person (sole administrator) is the one currently approving, he is the one supervising, he is the one monitoring, he is the one procuring, and he is the one paying. This is the height of fraud. Why is it that the President is refusing to inaugurate the board and yet allow few persons to feast on the resources of the Niger delta people?”

Otitoju and Johnson therefore enjoined President Buhari to inaugurate the NDDC Board in accordance with the law – the NDDC Act, and in fulfilment of his own promise, and so ensure equitable representation of the nine constituent states, and thereby guarantee proper corporate governance, accountability, probity, checks and balances in administering the Commission.