The Niger Delta Development Commission, a federal government agency established by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the year 2000 with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region has suffered a chequered existence of sorts, no thanks to unstable leadership, fuelled in part by allegations of graft against successive management boards, amongst others. In this report, Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf and Medinat Kanabe attempt a prognosis of the crisis within the agency.
THE Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has been in the news lately for the wrong reasons. At issue is that the agency saddled with the responsibility of pursuing the ideas and ideals capable of turning around the fortunes of the Niger Delta region, is to say the least, leaves nothing to cheer about.
The trouble within
From the inception of commission, it has constantly passed through the crucible no thanks to the woes that has repeatedly dogged its existence.
Speaking with a cross section of respondents including former staff of the agency and others who have been following the development within, the central theme that resonates is that the NDDC, which was established with the best intentions, has since gone to the dogs, no thanks to the handiwork of a select few who have continued to make mockery of the system.
To many of the analysts, corruption is at the centre of the crisis bedevilling the commission.
Corruption incorporated
In the view of a community leader in the oil-rich Niger Delta, Comrade Alex Kalejaiye, the problem of the commission is not solely one of leadership crisis but the issue of fraud in high places.
“The major problem with NDDC is corruption. This corruption could be broken into three phases. The first one is the presidency. I recalled that when the NDDC was created it was operating from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in Abuja, so it means the MD would be reporting to the Office of the SGF. The implication of this is that you will bring projects to them and say ‘Oga this is for you, Oga na you get this one’, as if you are bringing returns. It’s like a sergeant bringing returns to the DPO. These projects sometimes they mobilise to the tune of 35, 40 per cent and the job will not be done; that is Abuja connection. And then when an MD is having heat back home in the Niger Delta, he runs down to Abuja to meet the SGF, the top people in Abuja whom he believes will save him, and, by this, millions of naira will be pulled out of the NDDC account.
“Money meant for projects will now be diverted to the powerful people in Abuja just to protect the MD because he knows that the people up there will always protect him. That is a phase.
“The second phase is the contractor. Initially, when you are given an award letter in NDDC, sometimes you are mobilised to about 25 per cent of the total sum. If, for example, you have a project of N250million and you are mobilised to the sum of 20 percent of the money, you know what this means. Then the contractor disappears.
“The contractor has lost nothing. He has got good amount of money in his account, so if the job is not done, he doesn’t give a damn about the rest. Later, the percentage was reduced to 15, yet some people would still collect and disappear. Some contractors would delay the job; they would be so slow or deliberately bring up fresh contract quotation every year seeking a boost to their contract despite not delivering on the job.
“The third set of people is the civil servant. The civil servants that have been there since inception are still there. They are even richer than the state and the NDDC commissioner because they have been there for years. Some of them are in engineering; they assist the commissioners that come, the board members. When they assist you to build the project in your place, they lobby you and you give them jobs; many of them get jobs regularly from state commissioner and at the end of the day, many of them are millionaires.”
Way forward
While reiterating that the problem with the commission is one deep-seated greed on the part of the staff and contractors, Kalejaiye was, however, quick to admit that such can be discouraged. “It is gradually becoming a culture demanding 10 per cent, 15 per cent from contractors. It should be discouraged. Allow contractors to do work without encumbrances. I think those things will help the commission to fulfill its mandate. As far as I know, I think there is need for total overhauling of the commission in the interest of Nigeria.”
Prognosis of the crisis within
In the view of a public affairs analyst, Luke Onyekakeyah, the crisis rocking the commission over who should occupy which position in the running of the commission is fired by the selfish interest of each of the gladiators and not for the development of the Niger Delta or national interest.
Going down memory lane, he recalled that the first attempt to give some form of attention to the Niger Delta was the establishment of the Oil and Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) by the military government. OMPADEC made little impact and was phased out in 1999 by President Olusegun Obasanjo and replaced by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
NDDC ought to have been a veritable framework to fast track development in the region but it has been politicised and failed woefully.
The creation of more states in the Niger Delta and the 13 per cent derivation given to the states from the federation account did not help matters. The misappropriation and stealing of the huge allocations by politicians of the region further subjected the people to excruciating hardship. The practice of giving money to the chiefs and community leaders by the oil companies was ill-conceived, as it served private interests and could not placate the people. The same procedures, actions and strategies used in developing Lagos and Abuja should be applied in the Niger Delta and that is why the NDDC was established.
According to him, 20 years after the NDDC was established to bring development to the region and leverage the people, nothing has been achieved and yet billions and billions have been pumped into the commission with nothing to show. The money has been frittered away by greedy, unscrupulous actors.
Miffed by what may become the fate of the commission whose interest is not being considered by those running its affairs, Onyekakeyah lamented that these few cabal have constantly worried about how to continue to milk the commission that has turned into a cash cow of some sort. “None of these greedy people is interested in bringing development to the blighted Niger Delta region or in leveraging the suffering people.”
Raising a poser, he asked bluntly, “Can there ever be sanity in the NDDC for it to do the onerous task it was established to do?”
“Why has the NDDC worked for twenty years without achieving anything except to be mired in controversies?”
While shedding light on the crux of the matter, Onyekakeyah noted that the reported setting up of an Interim Management Committee by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari, is a step in the wrong direction and it is at the root of the crisis.
“What is the rationale for setting up another interim management committee when the president had already appointed a governing board, which the Senate has approved and waiting to be inaugurated? Why not inaugurate the board for it to do its job? What is the committee supposed to do, especially at this juncture that the president ordered a forensic audit?” he queried.
President Buhari, he maintained, should diffuse the tension in the NDDC by doing the right thing. “The failure to do the right thing is causing confusion.”
An insider’s perspective
Giving insights into the level of malfeasance in the agency, recently a top official of the NDDC, Cairo Ojougboh, publicly declared that a senator was single-handedly managing 300 projects.
Specifically, he said currently, the commission is owing contractors a whopping sum of N3 trillion.
Ojougboh, who is the acting executive director of projects at the commission, said that funds for 120 of them had been disbursed, adding that investigation of the deals signed by the senator are underway.
Besides, he noted that the senator, as part of efforts to cover his tracks, is currently leading a campaign against the interim management committee of the NDDC set up by the federal government.
Ojougboh went on to say that those who are kicking against the proposed forensic audit for the commission have a lot of skeletons in their cupboards.
Meanwhile, it was reported that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, had raised an alarm that his life was under threat.
Akpabio claimed that those behind the attack were the same persons who were at odds with President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to investigate the NDDC.
Call to action
Apparently worried about the parlous state of the commission, a Niger Delta youth leader, Mr. Kennedy Tonjo-West, last week urged the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, to intervene in the lingering leadership crisis in the NDDC.
Tonjo-West said the call to Kyari to intervene in the impasse between the legislators and Akpabio, over the inauguration of the board members of NDDC, was based on Kyari’s competence as an astute administrator.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that newly appointed board of the commission is awaiting inauguration, while Akpabio has appointed an interim management committee to probe NDDC’s finances and run the commission for six months.
The national assembly had said it would not have any dealing with the committee during the 2020 budget defence sessions, saying there was no provision for the committee in the NDDC Act.
Tonjo-West, a former Senior Special Assistant to Bayelsa Governor on Niger Delta Youth Matters, told NAN in Yenagoa that the impasse was an impediment to the commission’s progress.
He said that the impasse might affect NDDC’s appropriation for the 2020 fiscal year, if steps were not taken to resolve it.
According to him, if appropriation is affected, it will have dire consequences for development of the region.
The youth leader further said that Niger Delta youths were getting more aware of their roles and responsibilities in shaping their future.
He said that youths of the region saw crisis in NDDC as “an ill wind that does no good to the region.”
“We have watched carefully the proactive and objective disposition of the Chief of Staff to the President in handling issues that have to do with the presidency and members of its cabinet, especially when they concern policies, and reforms of government and the citizens.
“This is the first time the president is delegating his powers to the minister for the purpose of creating a healthy relationship between the people and their own vis-à-vis development of the region.
“We commend the Senate leadership for standing their ground in ensuring that the right thing is done, which is to allow the board to commence work.
“The way the youth leaders are feeling about the crisis suggests to me that trouble is looming should our plans to urge Kyari to persuade the president to prevail on the minister to do the needful fails.
“The patience of the youths, who are eager to see the development plan of the federal government materialise in concrete ways, is running out.
“The earlier the board comes on stream to settle the plethora of issues that have been left unattended to, the better for our safety and peace.
“We appreciate the minister’s efforts in looking into the records and the finances of NDDC. We are totally in support of the audit to ensure probity and accountability of public funds.
“However, we feel that delaying the inauguration of the board and denying them the space to work or delaying the recognition is certainly a drawback to our overall progress.
“Inauguration of the board remains the wish, aspiration and views of the people of Niger Delta as the selection process for membership was democratic and representative of the entire region,” Tonjo-West said.
He further said that the president consulted widely and met with Niger Delta governors before the board was constituted.
He therefore urged stakeholders to close ranks and give the board the support to succeed in driving development in the region.
Blessed assurance
In a statement issued on behalf of the commission recently, the Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Obi Odili, assured that the new management has pledged to embrace accountability and transparency in its processes to ensure that the commission effectively discharges its mandate of fast-tracking the development of the Niger Delta region.
The acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration, EDFA, Chief Ibanga Bassey Etang, made this pledge during an inspection of one of the commission’s facilities in NDDC in Port Harcourt recently.
Etang said: “We must do what is right and it must be a departure from the past. Whatever has been done wrong, must be corrected so that the people of the Niger Delta region can have the reward for which the NDDC was created.
“The commission was created for a purpose and I want to assure Nigerians and Niger Delta people, in particular, that the NDDC will do its best to meet their expectations.”
Etang said that the three-man interim committee was grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari for giving them the opportunity to serve Nigeria and the people of the Niger Delta region, assuring that they will not fail. He stated that the committee did not hesitate to hit the ground running “because there is a lot to do.”
The acting Executive Director Finance and Administration told newsmen that the new management was notified that some facilities belonging to the NDDC were vandalised, declaring that culprits would be handed over to the security agencies. He warned that those with intentions to illegally remove the commission’s properties should desist “or be prepared to face the law.”
But whether these assurances are truly reassuring remains to be seen.
Leave a Reply