Very important slap

Hardball

It’s the talk of the town. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Godswill Akpabio allegedly got what is called a “dirty slap” in local parlance for sexual harassment.  It is described as “A slap that brings a person back to his/her senses.”

The Very Important Person (VIP) allegedly on the receiving end has not denied the claim that it happened, which makes this particular slap a very important slap.

The claim by a former acting managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joi Nunieh, represents yet another low in an unfolding drama that has exposed one mess after another concerning the agency.

Nunieh’s sensational allegation was a response to the minister’s uncomplimentary remarks. Akpabio had fired the first salvo: “I wish she would go to a hospital, see a doctor and then get some injections and relax. I am not saying something is wrong with her, I am saying something is wrong with her temperament. You don’t need to ask me, you can ask about four other husbands she married.”

Nunieh hit back. After pointing out that Akpabio was wrong about her love life, she stung him, saying: “Why did he not tell Nigerians that I slapped him in his guest house at Apo? I am the only woman that slapped Akpabio. He thought he could come up on me. He tried to harass me sexually.

“I slapped him. He tried to come on me. I am an Ogoni woman and nobody jokes with us. I showed Akpabio that Rivers women do not tolerate nonsense.”

This exchange, in the middle of a corruption-related legislative investigation and forensic audit of the commission, is a distraction. In October 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic audit of the agency’s operations from 2001 to 2019.  About nine months after, the president’s move to deal with the NDDC’s failure has only produced twists and turns without the desired result.

There is no doubt that the NDDC, established in 2000 by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, has failed to develop Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta. More than six decades after oil production began in the country, in 1958, the story of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta is a continuing story.

The country is the largest producer of oil in Africa and sixth largest in the world. It is inexcusable that many communities in the region that produces the country’s oil wealth reflect perplexing poverty. The NDDC needs to be sanitised to make it an effective development agency. The same thing applies to the supervising Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.