The Actors. |
Over
the past few months, the Niger Delta Development Commission has come under
all forms of orchestrated and savage media and political propaganda, lies and
attacks, designed to derail the investigations ordered by President Muhammadu
Buhari into its activities in the past 20 years. These destructive attacks,
spearheaded by powerful politicians from the Niger Delta who have being named
as complicit in the wanton corruption and carnage in the NDDC, are intended to
undermine, sabotage and ultimately scuttle the ongoing forensic audit.
And
these attacks, against the Commission and the Interim Management Committee,
IMC, established by President Buhari to manage and administer the
Commission during this investigation and audit, have continued unabated.
The
Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC,has received intelligence reports
that the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on NDDC, Hon. Olubunmi
Tunji-Ojo and the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, have
concluded plans to release a welter of propaganda and lies against the
Commission and its Interim Management Committee, designed to derail
efforts to strengthen the NDDC in order to meet its Mandate of the sustainable
development of the Niger Delta region.
The
Nigerian public should kindly disregard whatever this group intends to, and
will, bring out today. The intention is clear and has remained so over the
past few months: to raise questions about the integrity and intentions of the
IMC in order to undermine the outcome of the forensic audit, as well as aspects
of its result already made public which show a sustained and unconscionable
looting of the Commission. We wish to reiterate that these attacks are dubious
and full of lies.
They
are indeed part of efforts to legitimise the wanton depletion of the capacity
of the NDDC to meet its Mandate to the Niger Delta region, and serve her
long-suffering people. For instance, there are ongoing efforts by Hon.
Tunji-Ojo to rationalise the 10 questionable contracts in Ondo State issued to
him in recent past and backdated. Those efforts cannot cover the illegality of
those awards.
The
efforts of co-conspirators and co-travellers in the Ministry of Niger Delta
Affairs have failed in the past. This will fail as well. The Niger Delta
Development Commission urges well-meaning and discerning Nigerians and the
entire public to wait for the results of the forensic audit. The revelations in
that audit, based on what is being unearthed already, will shake the Niger
Delta region, and indeed, all of Nigeria, to its foundations. That is what they
are fighting tooth and nail to undermine, sabotage and scuttle.
And
this behaviour is at the bottom of the perennial under-performance of the
Commission, which necessitated the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that
a forensic audit be instituted to clean the augean stable and restore the
integrity of the Commission and its capacity to address the poverty in, and
underdevelopment of, the Niger Delta region.
For
instance, between Hon. Tunji-Ojo, the Chairman, Senate Committee on the Niger
Delta, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi and the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie
Omo-Agege, the money allocated for the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the
Federal Government to grow agriculture in the region was reduced from N10
billion to N200m in the 2019 budget. This has effectively undermined that
programme, and considering the importance of building regional agriculture,
creating jobs and wealth for the people, this cannot be excused.
Also,
the money allocated for the partnership between the Commission and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was reduced from N5bn to
N100m, while the money allocated for the three major hospitals in the region
was reduced from N5bn to N50m.They were instead transferred to procuring
plastic chairs and desks and phony training programmes which they have implemented
in the past. The budget is there for all to see, study and investigate.
Since
the establishing of the IMC by President Buhari, over 50 cases have been
instituted against the Commission, to derail it and its activities, in this
very important moment of strengthening and redirection. All the propaganda and
lies unleashed in the past have failed and these will fail as well.
Be
that as it may, the IMC has decided to ignore them, and their distractions, and
move on, with the important task of overseeing the NDDC during
its forensic audit, completing and commissioning the headquarters complex
on Eastern Bye-Pass, Port Harcourt, as well as completing all regional projects
of the Commission. The task of rebuilding the NDDC so that it can meet its obligation
and mandate of developing the Niger Delta and improving the living conditions
of the people is far too important to be ignored. The people of the Niger Delta
region deserve no less.
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