August 26, (THEWILL) – To the entire management, staff and visitors to the Niger Delta Development Commission’s office in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the emergence of Samuel Ogbuku as the Managing Director of the Commission has demystified the hitherto stoic and sacred ambience of the office.
The doors of the Commission, from the gate to the office of the Managing Director, are open from Monday to Friday to ensure that visitors are attended to in the most responsible and polite manner, irrespective of their missions in the commission.
Interacting with some staff and appointees of the Commission in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, recently, it was gathered that people seem to prefer dealing directly with the MD, Dr. Ogbuku, than going to the other executive directors for any business in the NDDC House in Port Harcourt.
Ogbuku’s philosophy about his exalted office is that it is better to allow people to have access to the office for peace to reign than spend lots of money on people who come to protest just because they feel angry that nobody is giving them attention.
“When they come, I give them attention. There is a way you talk to someone, even if they are angry, they will calm down. It is not all of them that want money; some just need your attention and are happy when the MD is handling their issues and giving advice where necessary.
“Every human being deserves some level of respect. So, for whatever it is worth, I just believe that anybody who has spent time to come here deserves some respect and attention. That way, the person goes home happy,” the MD had explained in a recent report.
He derives some level of satisfaction that since he came on board, as the MD, no protesters carrying placards have been seen around the office and expressed optimism that such will not happen for as long as he is saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the activities of the Commission.
His knowledge of dealing with people stems from the fact that Ogbuku has been an activist and has been part of the Niger Delta struggle over the years. He understands what triggers anger and he is taking all necessary steps to avoid them.
“I am not sure people will have the need to fight and protest if they feel that those of us in authority treat people with respect. There will be peace in the work environment and that way, service delivery becomes easier,” he said.
The core mandate of the Niger Delta Development Commission, which is the rapid development of the Niger Delta region, is fast being achieved with the current management of the NDDC, led by Dr. Ogbuku.
When he mounted the saddle at the Commission’s headquarters, following the termination of Federal Government Boards and Parastatals by the President on January 5, 2023, Ogbuku and his team, though confronted with the daunting challenges of development in the Niger Delta region, hit the ground running with purposeful plans and programmes to ensure attainment of the Commission’s mission.
However, rather than being discouraged, the challenges spurred them to fashion ways of achieving better results. That inexorably led to the decision by the Commission to begin to do things differently.
In charting a new course, the NDDC had to use new strategies, which emphasised transparency and accountability.
In following the path, the NDDC management takes into account the vision of the Commission upon creation on June 5, 2000, which is to create an enabling environment for the sustainable development of the Niger Delta region.
The management is also guided by the Commission’s mission, which is “to facilitate the sustainable, even and rapid development of the Niger Delta into a region that is socially stable, politically peaceful, economically prosperous and ecologically regenerative.”
The present management team of the NDDC is no doubt heading in the right direction, particularly with the solid foundation laid during a four-day board and management retreat at the Ibom Icon Hotels and Golf Resort, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. This sets the tone for a new and reinvigorated journey.
Indeed, the management signalled that it would not be business as usual as it would enthrone transparency in its operations and reverse the resource-curse syndrome in the Niger Delta region.
Again, a two-day workshop themed “Partnership for Sustainable Development (PSD) Forum, NDDC 2024 Budget of Reconstruction Conference” was scheduled at the same venue for critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta region to fashion ways of restructuring the budget process to catch up with the new budget year.
Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, during the workshop, promised a new era of transparency in the budgeting process through a holistic articulation of issues with the involvement of key stakeholders, which include Governors of the nine Niger Delta states, international oil companies (IOCs), the traditional rulers and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).
He said the new ‘Budget of Reconstruction’ beginning from 2024, would address cases of abandoned projects and other infrastructural deficits impinging negatively on the growth of the region as enshrined in the mission statement of the Commission.
The agency, under his watch, he said, had been meeting with the Governors, the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG), the IOCs, and other stakeholders with a view to ascertaining areas of collaboration and other intervention measures to tackle development challenges in the region.
According to him, abandoned road and bridge projects in Rivers State, the Escravos road project in Delta State and other abandoned projects in the region, have already been earmarked for completion, and tasked stakeholders to be the vanguard of the evolution of the new interventionist agency.
He also noted that the forum was borne out of the current resolve of the Executive Management to operate an all-inclusive administration without boundaries between the Commission, States and other Stakeholders within the region. He emphasised the need for partnerships as the way forward for rapid sustainable development of the region, highlighting recent partnership engagements towards project development with the Rivers State Government, the Nigeria LNG and Chevron.
Expressing their avowed determination to give the Commission a new face, the executive director in charge of Finance and Administration, Major Gen. Charles Airhiavbere (rtd), said that NDDC is determined to do what is right in order to return the Commission to its original mandate, assuring that the restructuring of the entire budget processes would avoid duplication of functions and other impediments that stall effective implementation of the vision and mission of the Commission in the past.
He stressed that the new regime of proper re-engineering of funds to be allocated to the Commission would ensure the efficiency and effective execution of legacy projects in the region.
The Acting National Chairman, Association of Traditional Rulers of Oil Mineral Producing Communities of Nigeria (TROMPCON), Oba Obatemi Ogbaro I, called for more involvement of traditional rulers in the activities of the NDDC, demanding that it is only proper to consult royal fathers in the region in the siting, supervision and protection of projects.
The communique issued at the end of the two-day workshop stressed the fact that it was inspired by the desire to entrench collaboration, cooperation, partnership and synergy in the development of the Niger Delta region by all key stakeholders and States in the region, stating that the Executive Management of the NDDC convoked the two-day Partners for Sustainable Development (PSD) Budget Conference on the proposed NDDC 2024 Budget christened “Budget of Reconstruction”.
At the end of the session, which was divided into 9 groups on the basis of the Mandate States of the Region with stakeholders from each State participating, the following resolutions were reached:
Participants noted the strategic importance of the PSD forum in the Budgetary Process, which aimed at eliminating duplications and institutional suspicions in the development process; reducing the incidence of working at cross purposes as well as reducing wastage of scarce resources allocated for regional development initiatives by all stakeholders.
It was unanimously agreed that the PSD forum be held quarterly for the various stages of budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
The communique stressed the need for the Commission to strike a balance between meeting the political demands and serving the people of the region by executing people-centric projects.
It was resolved that the Commission should operate a lean budget that will allow and enable her to commence and complete projects within a certain and realistic budget cycle even as the budget of the Commission should have a spread to cover the several ethnic nationalities and communities in the region.
It called for less of new projects to be captured in the 2025 Budget, in order to ensure the quick completion of all ongoing projects under the 2024 budget.
Participants in the August gathering agreed that the timeline for payment of contractors should not exceed 45 days, allowing for a 15-day buffer after which penalties will accrue for non-payment of contractors.
To ensure that the budget receives inputs from the people directly, a town hall meeting and engagement of the several ethnic nationalities of the region be convoked prior to budget sessions.
That completed projects should be removed from the budget to allow for more new projects to be introduced into the budget.
That due to flood predictions and their impact on the region, there is a need for provisions for flood control measures in the 2024 Budget under the regional provision, as well as provision of IDP camps in the LGAs of the region for flood impact reduction.
The communique, however, captured that; to ensure equity amongst all the LGAs regarding the 2024 budget, the Commission should identify deserving ongoing projects with significant completion status and where the funds committed to such projects are insufficient, funds may be drawn from the legacy debt to augment.
NDDC management has made it public that inadequate funding is chief among the challenges of the Commission, hence the promotion of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in order to provide an alternative source for key development projects and programmes. It says the Commission is laying a fresh foundation for this kind of partnership to facilitate regional sustainable development.
It is visible that within the few months of Ogbuku’s led administration in the NDDC, a veritable platform has been erected upon which the desired partnership would thrive.
Dr. Samuel Ogbuku is a passionate, focused, self-motivated political scientist and administrator knowledgeable in conflict resolution, youth leadership development, personnel management, entrepreneurship, and investment. With over twenty years of crisis management and capacity-building experience gained across diverse areas of human endeavour, he is well-placed to make a difference at the interventionist agency.
Until he was appointed Managing Director/CEO of the NDDC, he served as Senior Special Assistant on Niger Delta Affairs to the Deputy President of the Senate, Obarisi Ovie Omo-Agege. He is also a Traditional Ruler (Deputy Paramount Ruler) of Ayakoro Town, Ogbia Local Government Area, Bayelsa State. He continues to be a bridge builder across communities in the State and the region.
Dr. Ogbuku looks forward to utilising his vast intellectual resources to strengthen the Commission so that every employee contributes to making a difference in the Niger Delta. He has also vowed to guide the Board to study the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan to avoid duplication of projects and to ensure that the Commission’s mission, which is “to facilitate the sustainable, even and rapid development of the Niger Delta, into a region that is socially stable, politically peaceful, economically prosperous and ecologically regenerative,” is pursued to the later.
