NDDC:  Rekindling a Smouldering Fire

Eddy Odivwri

After what looked like endless executive inertia, President Muhammadu Buhari, about nine days ago, sacked the interim administrator of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Effiong Akwa, and in his place appointed Mr Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua, who until his appointment ,was a Director in the Delta State office of the commission. That will be the second Emmanuel to head the commission, the first being Senator Emmanuel Aguariavwodo, a kinsman of Mr Ohwavborua, both from Delta State.

Mr Akwa was appointed at a time the commission was going through transformation. The plan to probe the commission was hatched by the federal government which felt that the commission was under-firing, given the amount of resources that have been channelled through it for the development of the Niger Delta region. But the results were not commensurate.

Akwa’s appointment was influenced by the former Minister of Niger Delta, Mr Godswill Akpabio. Akwa, a kinsman of Akpabio was supposed to hold the forte for just a while before a statutory leadership structure was installed in the commission.  The original idea was that some neutral leader should be put in place to oversee the affairs of the commission while the forensic audit of the commission lasted. 

But long after the so-called forensic audit ended, Akwa was yet in place.

And he stayed on for over two years. There were times some Niger Delta youths were even sponsored to protest any attempt to constitute the board of the commission. Interim administrator actually became a sole administrator for over two years.

The Act setting up the commission has no provision for an interim administrator. That there is so much arbitrariness in government is beyond argument.

It is instructive that despite the hoopla that followed the said forensic audit of the commission wherein some disturbing details like the approval of N6 trillion for the commission in 18 years, plus the fact that 13,000 projects were abandoned, etc., were unearthed; the federal government is yet to take any action on the report from the auditors. This is even as Mr President had vowed , nearly one year ago, when he virtually visited University of Uyo in December 2021, to commission a hostel built in the institution, by the NDDC.

President Buhari had vowed to not only recover every kobo stolen from the commission, but to also prosecute those found to have extended their private pockets into the NDDC treasury. President Buhari was perhaps moved to give that vow after listening to the then minister, Godswill Akpabio who lamented that the NDDC had been turned into an ATM from where people (especially leaders of the commission) went to withdraw huge cash persistently and mercilessly.

But nearly one year after, the President seems to have forgotten about his promise to rein in the rogues at the commission.

With just about seven months to go, will the President make good his vow to recover all looted funds of the commission and also arrest and prosecute all those who have abused the privileges offered them by  serving in the commission. If potential crooks get the signal that crime and roguery will not be punished, then they get even more lionized to do the unthinkable.

At the ceremony, Mr President had remarked that, “the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) needs to demonstrate that it can achieve the objectives it was conceived for and make its impact felt all over the Niger Delta region”  

The President rightly added that, “the lives of the people of the Niger Delta could be so much better if the funding received by this commission since its inception, in billions of Naira, over the last 20 years, have been judiciously deployed in the service of the people”.

But after that powerful statement seeming to indicate that Mr President was poised for action, eleven months have passed, and nothing in that direction has been heard or said.

Perhaps encouraged by the presidential amnesia,  it was gathered that the new minister of Niger Delta, Mr Umana Okon Umana, who had been accused of poor performance in office, was also accused of planning to defraud the commission to the tune of N480 billion, as alleged by a petition sent to the senate committee on ethics and privileges.  According to the petition, there is a plan to compile and execute  some projects that were not appropriated by the National Assembly , and use that as a reason to access some N480 billion domiciled in the CBN.

Part of the queries the senate had for Umana is the plan to sack the interim administrator. As it turned out, Mr President has ticked that last query as ‘dealt with’.

The senate committee has already scheduled 2.00pm of November 10 for the minister to appear before it. Nigerians will be waiting to hear how the senate deals with the issues.

But the coming of Abu-Ohwavborua, many believe, is to offer a breath of fresh air into the commission. Untainted by the unsavoury acts of the commission, the new acting Managing Director should have no time to waste in restoring the confidence of both the people of the Niger Delta in general and Mr President in particular, that he is ready to hit the ground running.

The speech of Mr President in Uyo, last December should be Ohwavborua’s operational manual. Niger Delta people should feel and savour the impact of the commission, which is basically an interventionist agency for the people of the region. They cannot literally be sitting by the bank of  River Niger and be washing their hands with spittle.

For over four or more years now, commuters travelling between  Benin (Edo State) and Warri/ Port Harcourt go through a gruelling experience crossing the Ologbo end of the East-West road.  It is red hell when the rains fall. Neither the Edo State government, nor the federal Ministry of Works has bothered to make life less hazardous  for travellers on this route. 

What is an interventionist agency in place for if it cannot rise to the occasion in such a matter, for its people? Many lives have been lost on that portion of the road, not to talk of the excruciating man hours lost by travellers, year in, year out.

The East West road itself has lasted for over 40 years, and it remains uncompleted. Yes, it is a mega project, perhaps beyond the scope and capacity of the commission, but perhaps the new helmsman should be reminded that there was a time the NDDC undertook maintenance of the East West road, for the ease of the travellers. 

Presently, the ravaging flood has cut off parts of the East West road, just as many communities in Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta and Edo States have been sacked by the angry flood. It should be a time the victims of the flood should hear from their NDDC too. It should not only be politicians, angling for elective positions that should come to the aid of the flood victims.

Given the feelers from the commission, it is obvious Ohwavborua is determined to make his impact felt  in the commission, as his consultations and meetings are driving towards sweetening the awful experiences of the people of the Niger Delta. 

Canticles…

Atiku and His  Many Hurdles

Eddy Odivwri

One month after the ban was lifted, what is your rating of the political campaigns thus far?

It is a harvest of political cataclysm

What does that mean? Please stop all this your needless grandiloquence on otherwise simple matters.

I am saying it’s been a torrent of gaffes and misfiring, especially by the two leading parties— presidential candidates of the APC and the PDP.

How do you mean? At least there have been issue-based campaigns. Not so much about petty rivalries and interpersonal attacks.

Not exactly. Did you not hear the PDP presidential standard-bearer, telling his kinsmen in Kano, not to have anything to do with a Yoruba candidate or an Igbo candidate? In the same vein, the APC standard-bearer had told his Ekiti audience that it is he, Tinubu, that they know not an Hausa/Fulani man or an Igbo man, seeming to imply that the Ekiti voters should vote along ethnic and tribal lines…. Just the same thing Atiku Abubakar was telling his northern folks.

Tinubu had also said he will not be shuttling between Nigeria and Dubai if he becomes the President, an indirect poke on Atiku who is often dashing out to either Dubai or France 

Those are clearly not examples of running issue-based campaigns.

But Bola Tinubu recently released his manifesto titled Renewed Hope, wherein the entire gamut of the economy was dissected, unit by unit with comprehensive plans on what to do.

My brother, do not be swept off your feet by the glitz of the document which appears to have been dutifully put together by university professors. It is one thing to have a beautiful manifesto and quite another to govern profitably. Didn’t President Buhari have a beautiful manifesto, garnished with 62 promises? Where are we now with his government?

But Atiku seems to have a more practicable understanding and solution to the problems of the country. Have you seen his manifesto? He was the very first to release his plans.

I say you should leave Manifesto matter alone. Manifesto is one thing, godly governance is another. In any case, the manifesto is only relevant when you win the election. Can’t you see all the problems Atiku is facing from within and outside his party?

Which Problem? Is it the Gov Wike cross or what? Can’t you see the PDP has moved on with or without Wike? Wike is a cross. The entire party has to bear it. He is a bull in a China shop. They have to devise strategies of guiding him out of the shop so he does not cause destruction.

You do not understand the damage Wike can cause the party. Did you know he has declared that he won’t campaign for Atiku, but work with and for an opposition party in the presidential election? That Atiku disrespected him by appointing “enemies of Rivers PDP” into his presidential council without consulting him (Wike).

Do you know that even Gov Samuel Ortom of Benue State, an ally of Gov Wike, has also declared that he will neither campaign nor vote for Atiku in his state, for announcing in Kaduna State that he (Ortom) was maligning Fulani cattle rearers? 

Do you know that even former Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State who had accepted to be in the  PDP presidential campaign council suddenly pulled out and aligned with Gov Wike against Atiku?

Do you realise that three other sitting governors – Ikpeazu of Abia, Uguwuanyi of Enugu, Makinde of Oyo, are loyal allies of Wike? Five governors from four geo-political zones, you think it is a joke? Do you know Wike controls them on how to reason and argue? So, if five PDP sitting governors, plus two or more former governors decide to work against Atiku, can’t you see the wind is being taken out of Atiku’s sail?

Look, don’t make a mountain  out of a molehill. One credit you must give Atiku is that he is a strong unifier. He has, all along, embraced the rapprochement approach. So many reconciliation meetings have been held and organized. Can’t you see Gov Wike is the hard-headed leper determined to spill the milk? After all, he has just one vote anyway! 

Unifier my foot! You speak with offensive naivety. Those governors have a large control of their states. They are politicians with lots of appropriated funds (security votes, ecological funds, IGR etc.) at their disposal and they know how and when to deploy such funds for maximum impact. You can under-rate them at your own risk.

I think the party leadership has been completely browbeaten into submission. Were it not so, these errant governors should be sanctioned for anti-party activities and pronouncements. Is it not the height of anti-party for a governor to openly declare that he is going to work against the presidential candidate of his party? What is more, many of the governors are running for one election or the other under the auspices of the same party they are denigrating and defying. Should common sense not demand that they sheathe their swords, at least, till a more auspicious time? Why are they determined to cut their noses to spite their faces? I can’t imagine any state governor, daring to challenge Adisa Akinloye in the NPN of the second republic. Or speak against the collective interest of the party for whatever reason. What is all this gubernatorial exuberance!

After speaking your grammar and getting angry here, you will see that the language on the field will not be what you are saying here. Look, I swear, if Atiku does not mend fences fast, they will all meet at Philippi, and you know what that means.

The Holy Book says, Thou shalt not swear!

Mr Catechist, thank you!