Category: Editorial

Ten passengers were reported to have died and eight boats burnt in a fire disaster that occurred at the Bonny-Bille-Nembe Jetty in Port  Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on November 21. The fire, which was said to have started before 10am, also took the lives of three siblings whose mother was said to have left them on one of the boats to purchase some items from a nearby market, only to meet the tragic scene on her return. It had also been reported that 48 hours earlier, a similar fire outbreak had destroyed property estimated to be worth billions of Naira in parts of the capital city. The eight boats razed were said to be loaded with fish, gari, yams, kegs of palm oil as well as crudely refined kerosene and diesel, among other items. Some residents of the area attributed the incident, most likely, to the careless stocking and handling of illegal petroleum products.

These disasters are only the most recent examples of the needless and avoidable  loss of lives across the country through the careless and often illegal activities of some citizens. Thus, in many instances, for example, poorly maintained and overloaded articulated trucks have been known to be the cause of accidents that routinely claim lives on our highways. In other cases, petrol tankers laden with inflammable products have had their contents spilled in motion, resulting in explosions and other types of accidents that again lead to needless deaths. There have also been in recent times cases of the explosions caused by gas leakages in markets and residential areas, where the combustible commodity is not authorised to be sold.

It is sad, in the case of the most recent Port Harcourt disaster, that residents in the vicinity attributed the fire, among other possible causes, to the stocking and sale of illegal petroleum products.  The point is, when this kind of dangerous and illicit activity was taking place openly, why didn’t anyone alert and inform the requisite security agencies before tragedy struck, with the attendant loss of lives and property?

Speaking on the incident, the Rivers State Commissioner for Special Duties, Emeka Onowu, said the state government would henceforth seize any property utilised for illegal bunkering and prosecute the owners. He pointedly accused community leaders and security agencies who were aware of illegal bunkering activities but failed to report these to the relevant authorities of sabotage.

Much as the commissioner’s sentiments are understandable, it would have been much better if proactive steps had been taken across the state to uncover, thwart and prosecute those perpetrating illegal bunkering before their actions result in loss of lives and property. This is particularly so as illegal bunkering is known to be a widespread activity across the oil producing states and several lives have been lost over the years to this criminal enterprise. It is true that many who participate in this illegitimate business are driven, many times, by a desire to make money and cater for themselves and their families. But when this kind of disaster strikes as it did in Port Harcourt, they not only endanger their own lives but also those of innocent people.

It is noteworthy that when this newspaper’s correspondent got to the scene of the incident, there were no firefighters around and local youths were using a mixture of sand and detergent to extinguish the fire. Two persons reportedly rescued from the scene were said to have died on the way to the hospital. When firefighters arrived, they were reportedly chased away by the youths, one of whom explained that “The state firemen came here, but we did not allow them to come close because we called them when the fire started but it took them two hours to get here. By then, everything had burnt down, so what were they coming to do?”. While the youths may have a point that the firemen should have responded with greater sense of urgency, their emotive overreaction was uncalled-for.

For, as the police spokesman in the state, Nnamdi Omoni, told reporters, four human skulls were recovered from the wreckage “but there might be more bodies there”. The youths ought not to have prevented the trained professionals from doing their job once they arrived at the scene. We call for a thorough and professional investigation to determine the cause of the fire so as to be able to take steps not just to punish culprits, if any, but also ensure proactive action to nip future recurrence in the bud.

Our sympathies go to the families of the dead. We pray that God will grant them the strength to bear the loss.

Africa’s oldest independent country and second largest in terms of population, Ethiopia, is in advanced stages of meltdown from a year-long civil war in which tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed early last week said he was headed to the frontline to lead government forces in a fierce war with advancing rebels – raising the stakes in the conflict many fear is steadily taking the country down.

In a statement after chairing an executive meeting of the ruling Prosperity Party, Abiy wrote: “Starting tomorrow, I will mobilise to the front to lead the defence forces. Those who want to be among the Ethiopian children who will be hailed by history, rise up for your country today. Let’s meet at the battlefront.” He said it was “time when leading a country with martyrdom is needed.” Forty-five-year-old Abiy is a former soldier with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army and fought in the 1998-2000 border war between Ethiopia and neighbouring Eritrea. But he won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for negotiating a deal that ended hostilities with Eritrea. He, however, since then has launched a devastating war in the Tigray region, and the statement he issued just hours after the rebel Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) forces said they were advancing on at least four fronts towards Addis Ababa indicated that the war had become an existential threat to the country. TPLF, which controlled Ethiopia’s government for three decades before Abiy came to power, is marching on the capital and is within 220 kilometres of target. Western nations, including the United States, France and Germany have called on their nationals to leave Ethiopia immediately, and most of the countries have pulled non-essential diplomatic staff.

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Abiy, who was sworn-in for fresh five-year term on October 4, at an event attended by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, had in November 2020 sent troops into Ethiopia’s northernmost region of Tigray to topple the TPLF, saying the move came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps. Although he promised a swift victory, the TPLF by late June had rallied back and retaken most of Tigray, including its capital, Mekelle, forcing the federal army to largely withdraw from the region. Since then, the TPLF has pushed into neighbouring areas of the country and also teamed up with some other insurgent groups to advance on Addis Ababa. The group says it is seeking an end to the government blockade on Tigray region, but also wants Abiy to leave power.

It was the fear of rebel advance on the capital that prompted a number of countries to pull non-essential diplomatic staff and urge their citizens to leave Ethiopia while commercial flights are still available. Within the one-year period it has lasted, Abiy’s government has gone from describing the conflict as a “law enforcement operation” to an “existential war.” Besides the high fatality count, the war has also spawned a humanitarian crisis widely deplored by foreign countries and multilateral bodies. Earlier in November 2021, the government declared a state of emergency and expelled seven United Nations officials from the country, accusing them of “meddling” in Ethiopia’s affairs.

The international community must do all that is warranted and possible – diplomatically and more – to head off Ethiopia’s disintegration. With its population size estimated at 115million in 2020, such prospect portends acute destabilisation, not only for the Horn of Africa but the entire continent and beyond. Besides, Addis Ababa is the seat of the African Union (AU) and as such is, in some sense, the continental capital. There’s too much at stake for the global community in Ethiopia and the country mustn’t be allowed to go under.

Let-Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief that tried to upend Sudan’s democratic transition on October 25, thought he had won.  He made a broadcast, sacked the civilian leg of the Sudan Sovereign Council (SSC) and declared himself lord and master.

But not so fast!  On November 21, he ate crow.  International hostility and sustained internal pro-democracy protests that tell the Sudan military to go jump into the Nile and get drowned, convinced Gen. al-Burhan he had overplayed his hands.  Not even the killing of no less than 41 street protesters, including a 16-year-old, by security forces trying to crush the protests, could stem the tide.

So, he invited former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok — the same one he had clamped under house arrest for almost four weeks — to hammer out a 14-point power-sharing deal; and reinstate the man to the job the general had earlier tossed into the Mediterranean Sea.

But again, it would appear too late.  Though they both not seem to realise it, both appeared to have stepped in new “rivers” (to borrow the philosophical thinking of Heraclitus the Greek), in a Sudan political crisis that had become a flux.  Both are in territories so radically different from October 25, when Gen. al-Burhan tried to crash the transition process.

If anyone must transit now, it would appear the general and the misguided Sudan military, who have had Sudan under their iron clamp for 52, out of its 60 post-independence years.  In any case, that appears the clear roar from the boiling streets.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Hamdok whose street stock had earlier risen, when despite his house arrest he told the protesters to call the military’s bluff, suddenly seems to have turned a villain.

Poor Mr. Hamdok!  He  projects the patriot who wants to save his country from further bloodshed.  But in the eye of his pro-democracy constituency, he appears no more than a lame-duck “secretary” to an arrogant Sudan junta, who can never be trusted to suddenly acquire a democratic ethos.  Does a leopard ever change its spots?

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“Hamdok preferred to become the secretary of a dictator over a symbol of an emancipatory movement,” Magdi el-Gizouli, of East Africa’s research think tank, the Rift Valley Institute, told The New York Times. ”Whoever marketed this as realpolitik underestimated the depth of the desire for change, and a new future, among the new generation in Sudan.”

That’s the testy situation in Sudan, and every second seems both crucial and critical, if that long-suffering country were to avert a catastrophe.  Indeed, triumph and capitulation appear the fair lot of both camps — at least their extreme tendencies: the political military that declared victory in a battle that was far from over; and Prime Minister Hamdok that became a villain, in the eye of his allies, even if he still made the generals to eat crow!

Indeed, the Sudan military has done too little to earn anyone’s trust — which is why the international community especially must not let off pressure against the generals, who seem quite averse to giving up the illicit lollies they had corralled over the years.

Ironically, Gen. al-Burhan is showing excellent pressure the international community could seize and exploit: his threat to give up for trial, at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ousted Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity at Darfur, dating back to early 2000s.

Gen. al-Bashir was the long-time dictator whose 2019 overthrow — again fuelled by street protests — started the current excitement. Gen. al-Burhan should be told, in plain terms, that he and junta cliques also risk the ICC treatment, should the current killing of protesters continue.

Not surprisingly, internal dissent isn’t letting off.  Sudan’s biggest political party, the Umma party, has rejected the al-Burhan/Hamdok agreement.  So has the Forces of Freedom and Change, who power the protests and run the streets, after the generals had tossed their members out of the transition government, in al-Burhan’s ill-fated coup.

Neither are the streets getting calmer or safer.  Sudan’s highly influential doctors’ body — the real spirit behind the anti-military protests — announced a 16-year old boy had been killed by the security forces; just as Al-Jazeera beamed, on its November 26 bulletin, the felling of another young woman, being carried to sad and grieving parents, by her hitherto fellow protesters.  It’s grim out there, on Sudan streets!

Still, this is the time for moderate voices to seize the moment and get the transition process back on track.  That is the only way to finally de-fang the generals; and birth genuine democracy in Sudan.

As the global economy slowly reopens in the aftermath of COVID-19 and its associated disruptions, countries across the world have been evaluating its impact in terms of the ruins left in its wake. In this, Nigeria is certainly no exception. Going by an analysis of data sourced from the apex bank, capital flow was found to have contracted by as much as 80 per cent in the last two years. Specifically, the report showed that the country recorded $17.1bn capital inflow between January and July, 2019, whereas the corresponding figures for 2020 and 2021 are $8.6bn and $3.4bn, respectively – representing some 80 per cent contraction over the period.

The report was succinct about the trend: “A comparative analysis showed that cumulative capital inflow declined significantly by 49.7 per cent to $8.6bn between January and July 2020, compared with $17.1bn within same period in 2019, reflecting the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic during the review period.”

Far from spurious, the finding could not have surprised anyone with any appreciable knowledge of the Nigerian economy. The issues are in fact multi-faceted. Aside the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, other factors such as rising security challenges, the economy’s own ingrained vulnerabilities, which are directly linked with the parlous state of infrastructure, government’s sometimes inclement policies and general instability in the macro-economic environment; all of these are such that could only have made the situation predictable. If we add to these the factor of declining crude prices in the global energy market and how this impinges directly on the nation’s ability to earn foreign exchange, and hence the ability of investors to repatriate their profits, only then could the dimensions of the tough choices they face be truly appreciated.

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In other words, the place of foreign direct investments in the development matrix cannot be overstated; not only are they sorely needed to catalyse development; they constitute, in a sense, the metrics with which stability and progress of any economy are increasingly being measured.

Yet, it goes also without saying the same factors said to negate inflow of foreign capital also explain, largely, why local businesses are not only dying by the dozen but why economic activities across the country are in a lull. Whether it is the agricultural sector where the plague of banditry has since constituted the defining essence, or the manufacturing sector and its multiple battles with forex scarcity, excruciating delays at the ports, multiple taxes etc., it is the same story of a country, which in one breath proclaims to the world about being open to business, yet practically leaves basic things undone.

As against the hordes of emergency, fly-by-night operators that are not only ubiquitous but commonplace, what the country requires at this time is a class of investors with values to add. In any case, one lesson that became apparent in the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis is how the rules of international relations are fast changing. Indeed, in a world in which the rich would not even pass the crumbs of their COVID-19 vaccine research endeavour to the poor until they have had their fill twice over, it seems about time the government shifted its gaze from searching for elusive foreign investors to taking practical measures to make the economy truly self-reliant. Again, the earlier Nigerians see the development as part of the inevitable re-ordering, not just of the capitalist system, but the supply chain that feeds it, the better it will be for all.

For us, therefore, the message is simple: whereas the goal is self-reliance, the strategy must be to look inwards.

The report that the daily meal allowance of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a meagre 600 naira while that of inmates of the Nigerian Correctional Service is N1,000 is quite sensational, considering the status of the two groups. While the youth corps member can be described as the flower of the nation, those serving in the correctional service have offended the nation and are merely given an opportunity to mend their ways. the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne describes the prison system in his The Scarlet Letter as the “black flower of civilised society.”

But, while the report puts the position in graphic perspective, we prefer that the feeding allowance of the corps members be enhanced, while leaving that of those serving in the correctional service as it were. After all, those serving jail terms are not condemned to die from hunger, and as such should be reasonably fed well. But it is scandalous if those drafted by law to serve their fatherland are being starved, as the report indicates.

After all, by the standard of the United Nations, those who live on less than two dollars a day, are poor. And by official foreign exchange rate, two dollars is worth far higher than N600. So, it means that young graduates conscripted, as it were, to serve their fatherland are amongst the poorest of the poor. That cannot be the intention of the NYSC programme. The one-year programme, among other reasons, is geared to imbue participants with nationalism and love for their fatherland.

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Again, in their early twenties, when most of the corps members qualify to serve, the body needs highly nutritional food, for a balanced growth. Therefore, to pay a paltry N600 to feed those who need the food for a balanced growth, would achieve a direct opposite of that. At the rate of inflation, even a thousand naira daily meal allowance will barely provide two decent meals in a day. So, N600 a day is way too low for young adults who are still growing.

To remain relevant and achieve its purpose, there is need to reorganise the NYSC programme to meet the original intent of the founding fathers. While the children of the rich and well-connected serve in big establishments in metropolitan cities, the poor are literally banished to remote villages without any modern amenities. Again, while those serving in the metropolis get extra allowances from their employers, those serving in the remote areas where the services are needed make do with whatever stipend they are paid.

So, it may be difficult for those in power to appreciate that some corps members live on the paltry feeding allowance they are paid, since their own children and relatives who are posted to better places for the one year programme don’t suffer the same fate. If the programme would not be viewed as one year of suffering, then the minimum standard must be one that is liveable. Going through school, for students from poor homes, is usually stressful, and it shouldn’t continue after school, while compulsorily serving the nation. Indeed, for such poor parents, seeing their children through school is a huge task. It will be unfair to add the burden of taking care of such children who have graduated and are supposed to be serving their fatherland.

So, we urge the senate to not just decry the feeding allowance of the NYSC members and do nothing about it. It should use its privileged position to ensure that necessary resources are put in place for a better life for the corps members.

A memorable one year service could be all that is needed to imbue patriotism and love for fatherland in our NYSC members. We therefore support enhanced feeding allowance for them.

Education has been in the doldrums in Nigeria for some time now. In no area is this more visible than the tertiary education sector. The hostels of the institutions are in a shambles, the classrooms are inadequate, with many students hanging on the windows to receive instructions, and the laboratories lack basic reagents. Lecturers are unable to update their knowledge as the libraries lack current books and journals; they are unable to attend international conferences to present papers and cross- fertilise ideas with academics from other countries. So, over the years, educational facilities in our universities have decayed. They continue to decay.

In a post on its website, the United States on Wednesday said Nigerian students in America pay as much as $190 billion as school fees. This is huge and a heavy haemorrhage. And this does not take into account how much Nigerians pay to acquire good education in Britain, Canada and other countries, even in Africa. There was a time when Nigerian universities attracted international students and lecturers. Today, the flow is in one direction-outward. This is unhealthy and should be halted by those in charge of the education sector.

Tertiary education requires good funding and, all over the world, governments vote a huge sum for the purpose, in realisation that it is a cornerstone of development. But, In Nigeria, education generally is neglected, commanding on the average less than seven per cent of the federal budgetary allocation. Both the old and new generation universities continue to suffer neglect, despite the proclivity to establish more universities.

Poor funding is not the only bane of our education system. Policies are as deficient as the structure of the schools. In the US that the students run to, there are first class institutions such as Princeton, Columbia,  Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Yale and Pennsylvania universities, There are also a next set of universities that may not be as highly rated as these, and are consequently not as expensive, too. Then there are low budget institutions that still afford those who could not afford the first rate institutions.

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Even for those who may be indigent, they could still afford the highly sought-after institutions if they are brilliant enough. There are many scholarship schemes for anyone brilliant enough. All these are lacking in our country. It is time to revisit the structure of the universities. There was a time, too, when the Students Loan Board afforded the poor the opportunity of acquiring tertiary education. This is long dead on the excuse that beneficiaries do not pay. It is a testimony to the lack of creativity and commitment by the authorities.

Leaders of the country have a duty to charge the National Universities Commission, working with the Governing Councils of the universities to come up with a template to make the universities functional. It is no longer tenable that government alone funds the universities. Parents, the private sector, foundations, donors, among others, have to be involved. But, they need assurance that their contributions would not end up being wrongly applied. Universities the world over, including the leading ones in South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania, enjoy relative autonomy that their Nigerian counterparts lack

President Muhammadu Buhari should consider what legacy to leave when his term is up in 2023. It is time to turn the tide around by making fundamental changes to our educational system, especially university education. This state of affairs in a sector that should be a catalyst for development has been distressing and encouraged many parents to send their children to all manner of universities and colleges in the United States. This is a shameful commentary on the state of education in the country. Many parents do all they could to send their children and wards to the US because of the perennial strike action by the academic and non-academic staff of the universities that has made it difficult to calculate how long it would take the students to graduate.

Things appear to be looking up for the Nigerian education system, going by results from the May/June 2021 diet of the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) announced last week by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). A quantum 81.7 percent of candidates who sat for that exam passed by obtaining a minimum of credit grades in at least five subjects, including English and Mathematics, WAEC said. Candidates seeking admission into Nigerian universities are required to have a minimum of credit in at least five subjects, including English and Maths, and the 2021 results profile marked the best showing in general outlook of results in more than a decade.

Head of Nigerian Office (HNO) of WAEC, Mr. Patrick Areghan, said at a press conference on Monday, last week, that out of 1,560,261 Senior Secondary School (SS3) pupils who sat for the examination, 1,274,784 (81.7 percent) attained the admission criteria. “Of this number, 630,138 (49.43 percent) were male candidates, while 644,646 (50.57 percent) were female candidates,” he added. Candidates in this category in the 2020 cohort were 65.24 percent of the total number that sat for the examination, meaning the 2021 performance showed up an improvement by 16.46 percent over the preceding year. Asked what accounted for the better performance, Areghan said WAEC couldn’t claim any credit beyond its collaboration with other stakeholders towards enhancing the standard of education in Nigeria and other West African countries. The credit, rather, should go to federal and state government ministries of education, schools and the candidates themselves. “The good performance was not our doing. It is the doing, the efforts of the various ministries of education, schools and candidates. They may have used our chief examiner’s report to improve preparation for the examination,” he explained.

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The 2021 performance outlook is certainly welcome and gives cause for cheer. But Areghan gauged the mood rightly when he admonished against cynicism. “Let us not be doubting Thomases or incurable pessimists. Our results are verifiable,” he said. We, for our part, congratulate the candidates and WAEC as well for the outstanding performance that indexed a positive swing in the narrative concerning standards in Nigerian education. But with what is widely perceived as deplorable and still declining fortunes of the sector, it is curious that standards blossomed amidst a wasteland sectoral profile. Although the HNO spoke of likely efforts by education ministries at the federal and state levels, it isn’t exactly public knowledge that there have been remarkable changes in policies by these governance centres targeted at transforming the fortunes of the sector. It is thus either that the 2021 candidates, who were regular students of secondary schools, rose above limitations of the system by sheer grit and self-application, or otherwise the system blindsided observers to fundamental recalibration that equipped the students for sterling performance.

Areghan alluded to systemic challenges that confronted the examination body in the process of conducting the examination, of which the major ones included insecurity, the coronavirus pandemic and activities of rogue website operators. “The examination spanned seven weeks, between 16th August and 8th October, 2021. Throughout the period, we were faced with serious security challenges in the Southeast (i.e. IPOB and sit-at-home order) and banditry, kidnapping, insurgency, etcetera in the North and other parts of the country. All these, coupled with the continuous effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, made the whole exercise an Herculean one,” he said. These same challenges hobbled the entire education system over the past year, and it is because of them, coupled with the notoriety of conmanship in the sector that there is cynicism over the 2021 performance. But if it isn’t a fluke, it means this country is on to a growth path even without preconditional changes in governance framework. And that is most welcome.

They did the right thing late. From all facts, it was a tragedy that could have been avoided. In the mire of bureaucracy, official indifference and nepotistic perversion, Itunu Babalola, who became known mysteriously as Becky Paul, passed on in an Ivorian prison November 14.

She was one of 3 million Nigerians residing in the French-speaking West African country. She trusted the integrity of its justice system and it was that naivety that first triggered the other factors that took her life.

Her apartment was burgled by an Ivorian citizen, and items worth about N300,000 were carted away. She reported the matter as a lawful citizen to a police station.

Ironically, the divisional police officer was an uncle of the alleged burglar. He did not apply the law on his nephew. Rather he bargained with Babalola, offering a sum of N100,000 to hush the crime. Babalola did not yield, so the negotiating the police officer turned Brutus and locked up the Nigerian immigrant.

This happened in2019. The matter had been highlighted by a Nigerian, David Hundeyin, and the attentions of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission under Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Oyo State government and the Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast were alerted to her plight.

“I have just received a message from Cote d’Ivoire about Itunu Babalola. She is still in prison in Abidjan where she has contracted a serious infection and apparently she is dying. All those promises by NIDCOM, Abike Dabiri, OYSG etc – audio. She’s finally dying,” Hundeyin wrote.

The commission eventually responded. “Following painstaking investigations by the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission and the Nigeria Mission in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, it is now confirmed that Itunu Babalola, a Nigerian living in Abidjan was wrongfully charged and incarcerated for a crime she did not commit.

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“Plans are underway to engage the services of a legal luminary to prove the innocence of Itunu Babalola at the Court of Appeal after the accused had spent two years out of a ten-year jail term for an offence she did not commit,” the commission had promised in a statement.

It was true that a lawyer’s services were obtained after the Nigerian community in concert with the Nigerian embassy in that country rallied funds.

But it was too late as the girl’s situation had deteriorated and she died.

“All we want is that Itunu’s death should not be in vain; we want the dead to get justice. We condole with the family and our mission in Abidjan is on top of the matter. That is why we have come to see you. On behalf of her family, I present to you the communication from her father.”

Dabiri-Erewa has said that Nigeria has written a letter to the International Criminal Police Organisation. The family also has written a letter of protest to the Ivorian embassy in Nigeria. The social media has been abuzz and has condemned the official neglect that led to the death.

Civil society organisations have raged, and a group known as Concerned Mothers of Abuja led by Evangelist Julie Egele, protested at the Ivorian embassy in Abuja.

All of these were good, but not good in time, and not good enough. The girl is dead, and all that can be done is convey her body and bury it at home. Funds that were hard to come by will suddenly erupt to put her to her bed when a fraction of it could have guaranteed her life.

She was a trader in a place called Bondoukou. The NIDCOM boss said there was no criminality attached to her. But whether she bore Paul or resisted bribe, we should not forget that the twitter platform that raised the alarm is the same that the government has failed to unban.

Critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta have cried themselves hoarse over the need to inaugurate a substantive board to oversee the running of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in accordance with the extant law setting up the agency. Unfortunately, the plea of such significant voices in the region, including civil society and non- governmental organisations, youth groups, traditional rulers, ex-militants and governors of the Niger Delta states, among others, have gone unheeded and the NDDC continues to be administered by an Interim Management Committee/ Sole Administrator arrangement for more than two years now. The untidy and unlawful situation which sees ad hoc interim management committee/sole administrators manage the affairs of the commission without an appropriately constituted board in place, has been blamed on the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Godswill Akpabio, who is believed to have brought unhealthy pressure to bear on the presidency so as to ensure he exercises absolute control over the agency since, in the absence of a board, the interim management/sole administrator reports to him.

Early in 2019, a substantive board for the NDDC had been constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari and the names of members sent to the Senate for confirmation as required by law. Although the Senate had duly confirmed the appointment of the board members,  their assumption of office was put on hold by the President, reportedly on the advice of Akpabio. The minister, in an official memo to the Presidency in 2019, was said to have recommended the running of the NDDC through an interim management committee and/or sole administrator until the completion of a forensic audit into the commission’s finances. The swan song, both by Mr Akpabio and the presidency has been that a duly constituted and legal board would be appointed for the agency once the forensic auditors had finished their assignment.

Indeed, President Buhari had promised on June 24, 2021, to inaugurate a substantive board for the NDDC upon receipt of the audit report. In his words, “Based on the mismanagement that had previously bedeviled the NDDC, a forensic audit was set up and the result expected by the end of July, 2021. I want to assure you that as soon as forensic audit is submitted and accepted, the NDDC board will be inaugurated”. Although the forensic audit report was submitted to the President on September 2, 2021, it is still a disturbing silence from the presidency as regards when a legally constituted board for the agency will be inaugurated.

We believe that the integrity and credibility of the forensic audit would have been better protected and enhanced had a legal board been in place at the NDDC. As it were, the widespread perception by stakeholders, particularly in the Niger Delta region, is that Mr Akpabio’s antics are designed to enable him to exercise sole control over the commission for as long as possible.

The NDDC Establishment Act No. 6 of 2000 provides that the board and management of the commission shall be appointed by the President, Commander-In-Chief, subject to confirmation by the Senate. This is certainly to ensure good corporate governance of the agency and help achieve a reasonable degree of accountability as well as checks and balances between the board and management of the commission. In the absence of a duly constituted board, the NDDC has had five interim administrators  in about three years. Surely, this does not allow for effective and efficient management of the entity, which has a crucial mandate to promote rapid infrastructural development in the region and thus help to alleviate poverty.

If the feedbacks from the Niger Delta are anything to go by, there is rising frustration, anger and restiveness among elders, youths and leaders of thought at what is perceived as insensitivity and disregard by the presidency in particular to the feelings of people in the region as regards the constitution of a legal board for the commission.  If the waiting game continues, it is not unlikely that emotions may boil over, with negative implications for peace and security in the region. As the President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), Professor Benjamin Okaba, pungently put it, “the general feeling is that the region has been auctioned out to one man to do with it as he pleases”. It is obvious that any unrest in the region may seriously affect the country’s daily oil production capacity, with serious negative consequences for the national economy at a time when the nation is just recovering from the crushing blows of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Since the NDDC has been effectively run by unaccountable interim management committee/sole administrators responsible directly to the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, there has inevitably been a plethora of allegations as regards financial discrepancies and other misdemeanors in the running of the agency, arising from lack of accountability as well as the requisite checks and balances. For instance, the INC had declared that “we are not particularly happy about the silence on the over N600 million payment made for emergency contracts; the over 1,000 persons that 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 N400 billion was voted for the NDDC, but the commission had spent over N190 billion before the budget was passed. So, what happened to the Procurement Act?”.

These kinds of questions are bound to be raised in the absence of transparency in the running of the agency and the opacity necessarily attendant on the imposition of a sole administrator on it, accountable only to the minister.