Sack NDDC, Niger Delta Tells Jonathan

Akanimo Sampson

Sack NDDC, Niger Delta Tells Jonathan

THERE are growing concerns in the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil and gas region that has been a zone of low intensity war since the late 1990s. This time around, the trouble is centring around the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a development agency.

There are unease in the oil region that the NDDC has been doing more on graft than on actual development of the oil-bearing communities. At the moment, there is a concentric opinion among both the conservertive and radical camps that the board and management of the commission should be sacked and replaced with core development experts.

Spokesperson for the Grassroots Iniative for Peace and Democracy (GIPD), a civil society group, Mr. John Abang, told AkanimoReports in an interview in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday that they are of the view that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan should unbundle the NDDC.

The group is claiming that the present group of leaders at the development agency are incapable of moving the volatile oil and gas region forward. The GIPD is not alone.

Other concerned social formations in the region are said to be pressing The Presidency to dissolve the board of the NDDC to forestall alleged monumental fraud going on in the commission.

The Niger Delta Non Violent Movement (NDNVM) in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, at the weekend, said the board should be dissolved now if Acing president Goodluck Jonathan hopes to achieve his agenda on the Niger Delta.

The statement, which was signed by the President of the movement, Mr. Onengiya Erekosima, claimed that members of the board were strange bed fellows who have not much in common and have not been stakeholders in the struggle for the Niger Delta development and emancipation.

Erekosima said for Jonathan to succeed, the board should be dissolved just as the federal executive council was.

This, he said, would enable the Acting president appoint qualified, honest and transparent persons including, activists, of Niger Delta who are conscious of the importance of the Niger Delta question to the success of the Acting president.

“This Niger Delta agenda will determine whether Acting president Jonathan will succeed and even his future political ambition”, Erekosima stated.

He said it was regrettable that the managing director and executive director (projects) were involved in in-fighting over a 5 billion naira contract just after nine months of the board’s inauguration.

This, he said, suggested that the board can no longer have a team spirit necessary to achieve their mandate.

“When you appoint people who have not tasted the pains of marginalization or are not in touch with the direct victims of the region’s deprivation, all they will care is their personal interest”, he said.

Erekosima said a fresh board that would carry the stakeholders along was what was needed and that it should be done now to avert the looting of the commission by the members who only care for their selfish interest and not that of the region.

Erekosima who is a strong contender for the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) presidency, warned that the youths of the region who are the critical victims of the Niger Delta imbroglio would not fold their arms and watch these appointees embarrass the region as non indigenes of the region would point to the fact, “is it not your people- Niger Deltans”.

He appealed to all Niger Deltans to give support to the Acting president so as not to give the impression that his people are not behind him.

ENDS

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