Nkeneke Efo, an Uyo-based journalist, analyses the politics of the state of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC) projects in Akwa Ibom State.
Nsima Ekere is just one of few Akwa Ibom indigenes to have been privileged to serve in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) at the level of Chairman, Managing Director (MD) or Executive Director (ED).
Others who served at some of these levels before him were Ambassador Sam Edem (Chairman); Barrister Bassey Dan-Abia (Acting Chairman/Managing Director); Udo Mbosoh (ED); Eshiett (ED); Engr. Thomas Ukott (ED), amongst others.
But Ekere’s tenure, which is just about six months old, has seen the NDDC became a song on every lip in the state, owing, principally, to the new interest generated in the project of the commission.
It all started when the Commission under Ekere, a former Deputy Governor of the State, barely two months in office, rolled out an advertisement for tender on contract jobs available for award. About 60 were for Akwa Ibom State only and covered the areas of the Commission’s mandate: Water, health, education, power and roads. Almost all local government areas had one or two of the projects listed. This, in addition to about 37 Emergency Roads Repair jobs that were also awarded by the commission, was enough to send signals to discerning citizens that the commission was going to be pro-active in its posture towards the state.
The road projects, especially, were awarded on roads that had long been abandoned, neglected by past government and which were in different states of disrepair, always flooded and most times, impassable. Some of the roads are Ukana Offot Street, School Roads, Udo Eduok Street, Nelson Mandela, Federal Housing Estate, Uyo among other roads in Uyo, and several others across the state.
Not many, especially in the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which produced the Governor Udom Emmanuel, saw the move as being political. There are speculations that Ekere, who had previously ran for the office of the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, will run again in 2019, on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Emmanuel is interested in a second term.
To the PDP, spotting Ekere early enough was fair. Sensing the direction of his Commission’s intervention in the development of the state was fairer. What to do? Politicise the intervention and set up a political ambush for the intention of the Commission in fulfilling its mandate to the people of the state, so far it stops Ekere from getting an associated boost for his perceived aspiration in 2019.
The opportunity showed up when the state government, which had worked on one of the roads abandoned by the NDDC in Ikono Local Government Area, went to inaugurate the road. Commissioner for Works Akparawa Ephraim Inyang said the NDDC had turned the state to an abandoned project site, urging the Federal Government to probe the NDDC over the act. In quick succession, a group, Akwa Ibom Integrity Group, which many believe is funded by agents of the government, ran a 7-page advertorial in national and local newspapers calling for the probe of the current management of the NDDC. Their petition listed 377 projects purportedly abandoned in the state.
What the petitioners did not know was that they had stirred the hornet’s nest. Ekere, who was their subject, was not to be found in the nest as other groups joined the petitioners, but this time with a refrain demanding that the probe should rather be on the contractors, who were mainly members of the then ruling PDP. The contractors listed in the petition were mostly ones awarded between 2007 and 2015 when the PDP held sway at the commission. The hunter thus became haunted.
To date, outside the emergency road repair contracts, Ekere’s NDDC is yet to award contracts in the state. The process for awards is, however, on. The commissioner recanted, saying he was not calling on the government to probe the PDP contractors but for the NDDC to complete its abandoned projects.
Some weeks after, another opportunity showed up. Minister of the Niger Delta Pastor Usani Usani was in the state to inspect projects under his ministry. The Commissioner for Works followed him round. The minister obviously irked by the quality of job by some contractors complained. The Works Commissioner’s media handlers went to town: ‘Minister berates NDDC for poor quality of jobs’, starting their stories with “the Managing Director of the NDDC, Nsima Ekere, has been berated by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Usani, for the poor quality of jobs by the NDDC.” It became an issue which led to the NDDC Director of Commercial and Industrial Development, Mr. Anietie Usen, a veteran journalist who served as the first Head of Corporate Affairs of the Commission, coming to Uyo to clear the misconceptions about the state, situation, quantity and quality of projects in the state.
Inyang countered by appearing on the state owned AKBC-Radio to make further comments, including saying: “I want to appeal to the NDDC to direct their contractors working on Ewet Housing Estate roads to do a good job. They are currently putting red earth on unsuitable materials. This is below sub-standard. That road will collapse in three months. We want roads in Akwa Ibom but we want good quality roads that will last.”
The attention of the Minister, Pastor Usani, was drawn into the crisis and he quickly sent out a release: “My attention is drawn to press posts which suggest that I hold the MD of NDDC, Nsima Ekere, responsible for poor projects delivery. Whereas I express grave disconnect for obvious observation of poor project execution, there is no wresting of attributing the case to the current management. I am conscious of the fact that my observation predates the current management which places no burden of liability on the Managing Director (Ekere).”
Day after day, especially in local newspaper and on radio stations in the state, the debate on the NDDC projects prevail, mostly fuelled by the politics of 2019 and the political traducers of the MD, Ekere.
My investigations to road project sites reveal that the NDDC has a very robust checkup system initiated by the current management.
At the Federal Housing Estate, Abak Road, Uyo, where the NDDC has “cleaned up” the once desolate estate, the Managing Director of the firm handling the “clean up,” God’s Owned Projects Limited, Mr. Godwin Brownson, said “those who said NDDC does poor jobs, should come and see what we are doing. They also do not know the NDDC very well. There is a serious quality assurance scheme in the NDDC contract process. There is no way I can do any of the bits on the BEME (Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation) that NDDC project monitors and inspectors don’t come to see. Even if they were not to come, most of the contractors are conscious that they have to build a good name and therefore cannot afford to do shoddy jobs. Every NDDC contractor wants a new job and also wants to get paid. The payment process is strictly based on quality of delivery and other due process. So, no NDDC contractor can joke with the quality of work he is contracted to do.”
“The job we are doing here is almost a complete new road, though the NDDC calls it emergency repairs. From excavating the old road surface, filling it with new laterite, stone basing, priming and asphalting, complete with new drains, it is a complete process of constructing a new road. The people of the state should be grateful to NDDC for this intervention,” Brownson added.
Investigation shows the people are grateful. A few I spoke with said they have never had it so good with NDDC. Imaobong Effiong, who runs a restaurant in the estate, said her area was inaccessible because of the bad road and she had to close down her restaurant, but with NDDC interventions, more shops including her restaurant have reopened for business.
To Otu Ita Toyo, former PDP State Chairman, “It is wrong to politicize the NDDC intervention. In a widely circulated piece he titled Where We There When The Vultures Gathered?, he stated: Now, if Akwa Ibom State Government draws attention to abandoned NDDC projects in the state in good faith, they are in order. Starting from abandoned local and state projects, the state government has a duty to ensure the completion of project within her jurisdiction even when the project was instituted by United Nations. There is nothing amidst there. To our fortune, the NDDC is here doing what the agency could not begin to contemplate in the days we controlled the Presidency. Would it not be a source of joy to then complement the state government for a change. Both Governor Akpabio and Presidient Jonathan publicly acknowledged that during their time in office, the PDP Federal Government and NDDC did nothing for Akwa Ibom State. Must we encourage that situation to survive now that we have the good fortune of a son who remembers the situation back home? The unhealthy rivalry is senseless, rather there should be cooperation.
Another former PDP chieftain, Chief Edet Mkpubre, former National Vice Chairman, Southouth, said: “All these stories of abandoned projects and blaming same on the present management of the Commission, boils down to the politics of 2019 in the state and that is regrettable. It is impossible to assess the Managing Director of NDDC in just five months.”
Possibly conscious of this scheming against the leadership, the Commission has at every fora reiterated its commitment to ensure that projects are driven more by community needs than any other considerations and also ensure that contractors perform within the confines of best practices and quality delivery.
In an address to the Akwa Ibom State Phase of the Stakeholders Consultative Enlightenment Programme in Uyo, Ekere had said that with the determination of the Commission’s leadership, it was incumbent on stakeholders to provide independent verification of project status within their communities, pointing out that the Commission recently launched a project monitoring and information portal that enables stakeholders to send pictures and updates of projects in progress.
The commission has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with FOSTER, one of its development partners, to strategically translate the Commission from a contract awarding institution to a development-based institution. The MoU will ensure the development of a communication strategy that has a mechanism that allows for feedback from key stakeholders that will ensure all key stakeholders are aware of NDDC activities as well as develop a robust monitoring and evaluation strategy that will ensure projects are impactful in the lives of the host communities.
