The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Niger Delta Development Commission

  • TROMPCON advises NDDC board

    The National Executive Council of Traditional Rulers of Oil Minerals Producing Communities of Nigeria (TROMPCON) has urged the new Board members of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to reposition the commission to enviable heights.

    The traditional rulers said the essence of establishing the agency was for development of the Niger Delta and must achieve its set goals.

    A statement by its National Secretary, Dr. Obafemi Ogbaro hailed the new Board members led by its Acting Managing Director, Prof. Nelson Brambaifa.

    It urged the presidency to allow NDDC operate with an act that established the commission.

    The statement noted that TROMPCON as member of NDDC partner for sustainable peace committee and projects monitoring team would appreciate the immediate completion of all abandoned projects across the region.

    It also appealed to the new board against discriminating payment to contractors, who borrowed huge amount of money to complete jobs, but still undergoing unnecessary bureaucratic bottleneck.

    The council charged the new NDDC Board to give utmost respect to its stakeholders especially the traditional rulers of the mandate area.

    It reaffirmed its support for the new board members in the task of developing the Niger Delta region.

  • Buhari appoints Acting MD for NDDC

    President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of an acting Managing Director for the Niger Delta Development Commission ( NDDC ).

    He is Professor Nelson Braimbraifa.

    A statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, said that the President, following a Federal Executive Council (FEC) resolution, has equally vested the supervisory role of the commission in the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.

    Read Also: Buhari swears in Ibrahim Tanko as acting CJN

    He has also approved the dissolution of the extant board.

    Also appointed as Acting Executive Director (Finance and Administration) of NDDC is Mr. Chris Amadi while Engineer Samuel Adjogbe becomes the Acting Executive Director (Projects).

    The above appointments, according to the statement, take immediate effect.

  • Alleged N3.6b bribery: ‘Why Ex-NDDC director’s ally is in custody’

    The trial of a former Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Executive Director of Projects, Mr Tuoyo Omatsuli, for allegedly receiving N3.6billion bribe from a contractor, was on Tuesday stalled at the Federal High Court in Lagos.

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned him along with Don Parker Properties Limited, Francis Momoh and Building Associates Limited before Justice Saliu Saidu on 45 counts.

    It accused Omatsuli of conspiring with the others “to disguise the illegal origin of a total sum of N3,645,000,000, being proceeds of unlawful activity, to wit: corruption and gratification.”

    They allegedly committed the offence between August 2014 and September 2015 in Lagos contrary to Section 18 of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act No. 1 of 2012 and were liable to be punished under Section 15(3) of the same Act.

    The defendants pleaded not guilty.

    Defence counsel Mr. Norrison Quakers (SAN) told the court on Tuesday that Momoh was yet to be released by the EFCC despite fulfilling his bail conditions.

    According to him, the third defendant was granted bail due to a “serious health challenge”.

    He wondered why the anti-graft failed to release him.

    But, prosecuting counsel Ekene Iheanacho said Momoh was yet to meet all the bail terms.

    He said EFCC was yet to get clearance from the ministry which the defendant’s surety claimed to be working in.

    “It’s true that the defendant has submitted all the documents for his bail.

    “We have confirmed the title documents from the Bureau of Land.

    “However, we received a letter dated December 31, 2018, from the Ministry where the surety claimed to be working in.

    “The ministry informed us that our letter had been forwarded to the appropriate quarter for reply.

    “This we have communicated to the senior counsel,” Iheanacho said.

    The prosecutor said the commission needed to verify the surety’s claim that he is a senior civil servant in the ministry before releasing Momoh.

    EFCC arraigned the defendants on November 8 last year, following which they were granted bail.

    The anti-graft agency had in May obtained a forfeiture order on Omatsuli’s four landed properties valued at N846.03m.

    An EFCC operative, Adamu Yusuf, said Omatsuli allegedly received a bribe of N3,645,000,000 from a consultant to the NDDC, Starline Consultancy Services Limited.

    Read Also: Man, 38, remanded for alleged defilment

    He said the firm was engaged to help NDDC recover its statutory three per cent annual budgets of oil and gas producing companies in the Niger Delta.

    Yusuf said it was agreed that Starline Consultancy Services would be paid 10 per cent commission on the total funds recovered.

    According to the operative, Starline Consultancy Services eventually succeeded in the job and was paid N10,218,019,060.59 as its 10 per cent commission between August 22, 2014 and June 25, 2015.

    Yusuf said: “Omatsuli agreed and received kickbacks to the tune of N3,645,000,000.000 from Starline Consultancy Services Limited through Building Associates Limited, whose alter ego is Francis Momoh.”

    The anti-graft agency presented a table showing that Omatsuli allegedly received kickbacks 11 times from Starline Consultancy Services between August 28, 2014 and September 8, 2015.

    Justice Saidu adjourned until February 11 for trial.

  • Erosion: Calabar community at the edge of the precipice

    Residents of Enima Omin Omin Community in Calabar, Cross River State have cried out to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and other relevant authorities to save them from an impending doom that may result from a failed road that was shoddily done by a contractor to who the contract for the road construction was awarded in 2014. NICHOLAS KALU reports that the community is on the edge of the precipice and may be cut off from other communities if nothing is done urgently.

    For residents of Enima Omin Omin Community in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, every minute they live in palpable fear of recording fatalities in their community due to haphazard road construction project carried out on their road.

    The contract for the project, it was gathered, was awarded in 2014 by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), but was abandoned by the contractor handling the project. In April this year, the community had to write to the NDDC to demand that the contract be terminated and awarded to a competent contractor.

    When Niger Delta Report visited the area, it was observed that a shoddy clearing, which had been abandoned, had left the road almost impassable. There are deep gullies dotting the landscape.

    To worsen the situation, the shoddy job had jeopardised the drainage system constructed by the community to manage flooding in the area, thereby leading to the rapid expansion of ravine. The houses are at the edge of the precipice. Again, members of the community may be cut off from their neighbouring communities because the expanding deep gullies may encroach to the road and cut it off.

    Chairman of the Enima Omin Omin Neigbourhood Association, David Edem, a lawyer, who narrated the community’s ordeal said: “Sometime in 2014, a contract for the construction of the Enima Omin Omin Road was awarded by NDDC. After a long time, the contractor never moved to site. The community had to write to NDDC asking that the contract be terminated and the project awarded to a more competent contractor. We wrote the letter in January this year. We were here in April when suddenly the contractor ran to site and began to clear the site for work to begin. When they started doing haphazard job after raising our hopes, we had to draw the attention of the NDDC to it.

    “After that they left, using the rain as subterfuge. Clearing the site by the contractor was the extreme error by the contractor as the action engendered the erosion and the gully sites. It has now opened up this place because virtually all water comes undirected to this ravine. You can see what is happening. Our electric pole was here, we had to relocate it. We spent almost N200, 000 relocating it so that it would not be submerged by the ravine.

    “We are in a terrible situation now because the contractor left the road much worse that it was. We are a community bonded in strength and unity of purpose. We used to have monthly contribution through which we manage our roads. Where we have challenges, we contribute; we make gutters and make it motorable for our residents. This was until the contractors came in and spoilt everything.

    “This has affected our lives so terribly; especially with this erosion site it has created, because if nothing is done and the contractor refuses to move to site and complete this job so that we can channel water properly, then by next rainy season, houses would be submerged by the yawning erosion site. People would be at risk. We were able to manage erosion in the community before the contractor messed up the whole thing through construction of culverts through which water passed through until when they now came to open up the entire area to allow water to flow freely from all angles into the ravine. Their coming destroyed everything and left us exposed to this danger.

    “They have left the road in a far worse state. When it rains most cars cannot even use the road. Before we had a mechanism, where we had people work on the roads. We bought chippings and poured on it.  The condition of the road was all right before they did the shoddy job which has exposed the road to ravine because of rain.

    “So, we are left worse off than we were. We had told them before they started the job to allow us to continue to manage and maintain the road as we have been doing if they were not going to complete the road project. They said they were going to work.

    If the contractor is unwilling to complete this job, they should bring in some other competent contractor.”

    A resident of the community, Mr Tony Takon, whose house is close to the ravine said it would not survive another rainy season.

    “Over time, we have noticed that the encroachment from the ravine getting worse every day. Luckily for us, the rains have subsided and its destruction of the road temporarily halted. But I don’t think we would be this lucky with another round of downpour if nothing is urgently done to ameliorate the horrible situation.

    “We are praying that some palliative measures should be taken as soon as possible to, at least, prevent our people from suffering continuously. All the while we were hoping that once the rain stops, the contractors would move to site again, but nothing has happened so far. We hope that the matter should be looked into by the appropriate authorities and do something fast.

    “For the ravine, we had created passage for the water but there is little the community can do. So there is no way to tackle this permanently without government’s intervention. What they have done has even jeopardised the community’s efforts because all the structures put in place have been dest

    royed. Even most of the electric poles had to be removed. Most of these destructions occurred in the night. One wakes up and notices that a huge chunk of the road has caved in. We really need something done as soon as possible,” Takon pleaded.

    Another resident, who also stays close to the ravine, Osinachi Mboku, said: “We are appealing to government to fix the road before the situation becomes a disaster. The contractors came and destroyed the road so government should come in and do something before people lose their lives.”

    A letter to the Director, State Office of the NDDC, signed by David Edem (Chairman), Mr Boniface Ekarika (Head Project) and Mr John Nandi (Treasurer), for the Enima Omin Omin Neigbourhood Association, said the contractor had “subjected the community to pain, anguish and agony in the last four years.”

  • ‘I want to see more Niger Delta youths play golf’

    The Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, His Excellency, Obong Nsima Ekere, has affirmed the commitment of the Commission to developing golf talents in the region to be enlisted in the league of professional golfers.
    Ekere, who made this known at the Ibom Hotel & Golf Resort, Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, shortly after performing the ceremonial tee-off of the NDDC sponsored Pro-Am Golf Championship, noted that if successful, the talents discovered would not only help in creating jobs but would also add value and boost the economy of the Niger Delta region in particular and Nigeria in general.
    The NDDC boss while fielding questions from newsmen also noted with excitement the emergence of a Niger Delta youngster as the best in Amateur golf tournament, stating that he would like to see more youths of the region play golf.
    Ekere said “The truth of the matter is that we have a lot of talents in the Niger Delta and when these talents are developed, it will not only create jobs, but will also help in boosting the economy of the region. And you know most of the wealthiest people today in the world are sports men and women. So we will like to see Niger Delta sons and daughters fall into that category of people.

    Read Also: ‘How to end building collapse in Niger Delta’

    And I was so impressed when I saw the young girl of twelve years who did the best in an Amateur Golf Tournament in the country. That is very important. She is an Akwa Ibom girl; a proud daughter of the Niger Delta. Those are the kind of talents we will like to fish out; these are the kind of talents we will like to develop and promote because we know that ultimately, they will add value to the region and the country”.
    Obong Ekere, who is the 2019 APC governorship candidate for Akwa Ibom state, also noted that the essence of the tournament was for the interest of the community and not the Commission.  “For us, we are not really looking at returns for the NDDC, rather, returns for the community. We want to be sure that whatever investment we are making will bring out talented and employable citizens”, the NDDC boss noted while assuring that the golf tournament would be sustained beyond his tenure as Managing Director of the Commission.
    Also speaking, Coordinator of the tournament, Barr Edidiong Idiong, thanked the NDDC for sponsoring the event expressing the hope that the aims of the tournament would be achieved.
    Idiong noted that with the NDDC’s backing, a platform has been created for the youths of the Niger Delta region to take golf as a sporting career which would not only help in keeping them out of restiveness but also guarantee a blissful future.

  • NDDC, communities partner on project implementation

    Communities in the Niger Delta have expressed their readiness to interface with Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as a way of ensuring effective  implementation of NDDC projects in their localities.

    This was disclosed during the training of local project monitors from selected communities in the Niger Delta.

    According to an official of LITE Africa, a civil society group that facilitated the project,  Arinze Ojukwu, the training was aimed at equipping the monitors with necessary skills for effective monitoring of projects implementations, particularly those by NDDC in their communities.

    “They were part of the implementation of a project known as Strengthening the Capacity of Stakeholders for Effective Engagement of NDDC (SCOSEN) which is jointly implemented by Leadership Initiative for Transformation and Empowerment (LITE-Africa) and Community Empowerment and Development Initiative(CEDI).

    “It is a 3 month project implemented in six communities (Ugbolokposo, Okuatata, Ebrumede, Edjeba, Ugbuwangue and Ugbori) in two local government areas of Uvwie and Warri South in Delta state.

    “The exercise trained community leaders on project monitoring and effective advocacy engagement with the NDDC to bring to the fore the issues of community ownership and participation in projects design implementation and monitoring of NDDC projects.” he explained.

    Asked what prompted the decision to train the people said,  “During the Monitoring and Evaluations exercise to evaluate the impact of the project on beneficiary communities, it was observed that the SCOSEN project served as an opportunity to experiment how effective the project objectives were met in the six communities with a view to building on lessons learned and promoting a broader roll-out of the approach.”

    Reacting to the development,  community members praised the efforts of LITE-Africa and CEDI on increasing their knowledge and capacity to effectively monitor NDDC projects and advocate for better service delivery.

    It was explained that the establishment and training of the Local Project Monitors (LPMs) at community level provided guidance and monitoring of projects during project implementation through the work of the LPM, NDDC would enable NDDC get community feedbacks on how their projects are implemented and how it affects the lives of community members.

    This they noted has also contributed to strengthening the relationship between the communities and the NDDC.

    “Prior to the initiative,  on the spot assessment and investigation of the impact of NDDC projects in the Nigerian Delta communities shows that Community members believe that NDDC implements projects for their benefit but would like the commission to always have a robust engagement with the communities before deciding on projects to be cited and where, this in their view would help to further increase community ownership of projects and reduce incidences of projects duplication and abandonment.

    “Some community members affirmed that the knowledge and skills gained from the SCOSEN project have empowered them to take ownership of NDDC projects in their locality and they believe that monitoring of projects is very important to the general service delivery of NDDC projects.

    “Some of the beneficiaries took the initiative from the knowledge gained in the SCOSEN project and visited the NDDC office in Warri on advocacy to request for better project delivery and draw the commissions attention to some sub-standard and abandoned projects in their communities.”

    Appraising the impact of the groups projects,  Ojukwu said: “The SCOSEN project has made some impact and on the long run it is seen to be sustainable as the established LPMs will not only monitor NDDC projects but also other government agencies in the Niger Delta Institutions (NDIs) in their communities, said some of the trained monitors. It is recommended that NDDC project managers work in line with the LPMs to effectively monitor projects in the beneficiary communities to ensure their mandate is carried out by their contractors.

    “This will lead to socio-economic development of the Niger Delta and improved relationships between communities and the NDDC.”

  • ‘Ndoma-Egba did not boycott APC state congress in C/River’

    Chairman of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, has debunked reports that he boycotted the State Congress of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State on Wednesday.

    A statement on signed by an associate and APC chieftain, Chief Ernest Irek, on behalf of Ndoma-Egba, made available to The Nation in Calabar, read, “The attention of Senator Victor Ndoma Egba has been drawn to reports making the rounds in the online and mass media that he boycotted the congress conducted and approved by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC.

    Read Also: Cross River increases NYSC members’ allowance

    “The Chairman of NDDC had called top members of the party to intimate them of an earlier appointment he had to keep outside the country.

    “Ndoma Egba is loyal party man who cannot show disrespect to an order of the NWC of APC especially one that has the imprimatur of the National Chairman.The Senator is in complete support of the congress conducted in Calabar today 22 August 2018 and would personally issue his personal statement once he gets back to the Country.“

  • Flood sacks hundreds in Ondo riverine community

    No fewer than 200 residents of Ayetoro, a riverine community in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State have been displaced by water surge from the Atlantic Ocean.

    Sources said more than 25 houses in the community with values were eroded.

    According to a resident, Emmanuel Aralu the ocean began to overflow its bank on Saturday night.It caught man residents unawares.

    He confirmed that more than 25 houses were affected while no fewer than 200 people were sacked by the ocean.

    Properties worth millions of Naira were said to have been destroyed during the surge.

    Read Also: Eight die in Ondo road crash

    Aralu said “the surge occurred in the middle of the night when many people had retired to bed. We only  tried to pack some of our belongings out, but when we noticed that most of the houses had been submerged, we had to evacuate the people from their houses.”

    The community leader urged the state government to assist people in the community.

    He said the embankment project by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has failed to prevent ocean surge in the area.

  • NDDC Resumes Post-Graduate Foreign Scholarship Programme

    The Niger Delta Development Commission has concluded plans to resume the Post-Graduate Foreign scholarship to qualified indigenes of the Niger Delta region, after a comprehensive restructuring of the programme.

    This follows the approval by the Governing Board and Management for the commencement of the 2018 award process.

    The Commission, while announcing the resumption of the scholarship scheme, conveys its regrets at the cancellation of the inconclusive 2017 award process, noting the inconveniences suffered by students who applied for the scholarship.

    To provide a fresh start and a seamless process, all outstanding tuition for recipients of the scholarship has been cleared, as part of the restructuring instituted by Management, and calls for new applications from qualified candidates for the 2018 programme. (However, any student who has proof that he has not been paid should feel free to contact the Commission immediately).

    Read Also: ‘Kwankwaso’s govt foreign scholarship fraudulent’

    The advertisement for the new programme will be published in national media, as well as the Commission’s website.

    Established in 2010, the NDDC post-graduate foreign scholarship is designed to produce top level professionals with technical manpower, capacity and expertise who would compete in the oil and gas industry and other sectors of the Niger Delta region.

    Worth about $30,000 per annum, it is helping to build a knowledge-based economy that will meet the challenges of globalisation. It covers nine professional disciplines such as engineering, medical sciences, computer science technology, geosciences, environmental sciences, agriculture, environment/oil and gas law, as well as project management.

    Altogether, 1,409 students have benefited from the programme, including Charles Igwe,  whose unique redesign of the Turcot Interchange road, as a Ph.D student of Construction Engineering at Concordia University, Canada, helped save the Montreal Area Municipality over $1 billion, and Mr Ubong Peters, who won a global three-minute thesis competition.

  • NDDC appointment: Don’t disrupt the formula

    They were appointed to complete the tenure of their predecessors. And they tried to acquit themselves well in office as heads of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). But towards the twilight of the appointed term, controversy began to build around the tenure of Nsima Ekere as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of NDDC and Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba as Chairman of the commission’s board. The controversy has continued to build and even degenerate to tension.

    However, many in the Niger Delta believe that going by law, tradition, and their appointment letters, the argument over the tenure of Ekere and Ndoma-Egba should not have arisen, as their terms naturally ended last year.

    In a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari in February, a national officer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Yekini Nabena, said the tenure of Ekere and Ndoma-Egba ended last year, in line with the terms of their appointment and the law establishing NDDC, which clearly stated that they were to complete their respective state’s tenures. Nabena said while Ndoma-Egba was appointed to serve out the tenure of Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, a fellow Cross River State indigene, Ekere was picked to complete the tenure of fellow Akwa Ibom citizen, Mr Bassey Dan-Abia.

    The replacements followed the dissolution of the NDDC board by Buhari in 2015. Ewa-Henshaw and Dan-Abia were appointed in December 2013 for a statutory four-year single term that should have ended last December.

    Ekere’s appointment letter from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), dated November 1, 2016, and signed by then SGF, Babachir Lawal, has been widely quoted in the media and has not been denied by the federal government. Part of it said: “The appointment took effect from November 1 2016 and you are to serve out the remainder of the term of office of your predecessor in line with Section 5(2) of the Act.”

    Under normal circumstances, that letter from the SGF’s office obviously resolves every dispute around the tenure of the NDDC managing director and chairman. But under the seemingly abnormal circumstances, which many in the Niger Delta now find disturbing, tension is mounting over what constitutes the tenure of the NDDC board.

    A group under the aegis of Eastern Niger Delta Coalition had in a petition to Buhari dated November 9, 2017 condemned as immoral what they saw as an alleged attempt to extend the tenure of the NDDC managing director and the chairman. “To say the least, this attempt is criminal, offensive, satanic, and an anathema to the peace and development in the Niger Delta region as well as the harmonious coexistence of all the ethnic nationalities spread across in the nine oil producing states,” the group stated.

    The ruling All Progressives Congress in Ondo State urged the president to dissolve the board of NDDC, saying it ended last December, “Any extension of the tenure of the board is unconstitutional and an attempt to give Cross River and Akwa-Ibom states undue advantage of serving for continuous period of six years as chairman and managing director, respectively, to the detriment of other member states,” Abayomi Adesanya,  the state publicity secretary said.

    The paramount ruler of Opokuma clan in Kolokuma/ Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, King Okpoitari Diongoli, Opuokun IV, Ibedaowei of Opokuma, added his voice to the call for dissolution of the NDDC board in an open letter to Buhari in January. The traditional ruler said, “The issue of the tenure of the Board and Management of the NDDC is a creation of an act of Parliament. Therefore, it should not be exposed to the whims and caprices of a group or individuals or even a state for whatever reasons.”

    The NDDC Act 2000 provides for the rotation of the commission’s leadership among the nine member states of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Abia, Imo, and Ondo, in alphabetical order. Under the Act, states that produce officers of a board dissolved before its terminal date retain their slots in any new board to complete the balance tenures.

    Drafters of the Act, in their wisdom, designed the NDDC leadership this way, obviously, to maintain equity and eschew rancour among the member states of the commission. It was against this background that the new board Buhari constituted reflected the composition of the previous board in terms of the members’ states of origin, to complete their allotted tenures. It was also in the spirit of rotation that Mr. Timi Alaibe, from Bayelsa State, served only two years as substantive Managing Director of NDDC after acting in that post for two years.

    Cross River State began its chairmanship turn in 2013 and was expected to have till 2017. The positions of Managing Director, Executive Director (Projects), and Executive Director (Finance) also follow the rotational policy under Part 4, Section 12 of the NDDC ACT.

    No state since the inception of NDDC has taken more than a four-year single tenure. Obviously, that was why when soon after his inauguration in 2015 Buhari appointed Mrs Ibim Semenitari as acting Managing Director of NDDC, groups and individuals from Akwa Ibom State organised protests and even instituted court cases challenging her appointment and calling for a chance to complete the state’s tenure. The opposition to her tenure continued until an Akwa Ibom indigene, Ekere, replaced Semenitari in substantive capacity.

    Ironically, Akwa Ibom State is now the prime antagonist to the rotational arrangement that brought its own, Ekere, to office.

    The distortion seems to be encouraged by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who gave a legal opinion that “The inauguration of the present NDDC board is a fresh tenure as contemplated by section 3(1), that is, a term of four years which is subject to renewal.”

    Trying to make a difference between dissolution and vacancy, Malami argued that there was no vacancy at the NDDC at the time it was dissolved. The six instances, according to the AGF’s interpretation, include bankruptcy, suspension, conviction, unsound mind, misconduct, and resignation. He said none of these applied to members of the erstwhile NDDC board and so their successors could not be completing a balance tenure.

    Interestingly, the current SGF, Mr. Boss Mustapha, whose office had specified that the new appointees were “to serve out the remainder of the term of office” of their predecessors, has toed the AGF’s line.

    But the overwhelming opinion in the oil-rich Niger Delta is that, going by the rotational policy, the legal term of the NDDC board ended last year. They believe the lawful board of NDDC from January 2018 to 2021 should have Delta State occupying the position of chairman; Bayelsa State occupying the office of Managing Director; Rivers State occupying the post of Executive Director (Projects); and Akwa Ibom State occupying the position of Executive Director (Finance).

    A group of seven appellants, comprising four people from Bayelsa State, and one each from Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Abia states have filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, challenging the continued existence of the NDDC board. The case, which first came up on April 16 at Court 4, presided over by Justice Anwuli Chikere, has Buhari as first defendant, NDDC as second defendant, and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs as third defendant. It was adjourned till May 21.

    As the legal battle continues, the political outcry has also continued to grow. But many feel there is a political and moral imperative to ensure all that the Nigerian government has achieved in term of peace and security in the Niger Delta since the last decade is not destroyed in the current controversy.

     

    • Newman writes from Yenogoa, Bayela State