BEVERLY HILLS, May 23, (THEWILL) – Tension mounts in the Niger Delta, following the expiration this week of the 30-ultimatum given by the Ijaw Youths Council for the constitution of the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission.
According to the President of the IYC, Dr Peter Igbefa, the ultimatum was to make the Federal Government stop what he described as the undue delay and uncertainty in policies which have led to the non-constitution of the board of the Commission.
Three weeks ago, Igbefa reportedly said, “The sole administrator is unknown to the law setting up the Commission. While we support the forensic audit set up by the Federal Government and praise President Muhammadu Buhari for it, we cannot watch and see nothing being done to make NDDC serve our region. Many of our youths are unemployed, projects have not been completed and nothing is happening. At the expiration of our 30-day ultimatum, we will strike…”
The build- up to the group’s demand started on the heels of the commissioning of the permanent office of the Commission in Port Harcourt in April 2021, with nothing said or done about the corruption and maladministration carried out by the Prof Pondei-led Interim Management Committee and the endless forensic audit authorised by President Buhari since April.
“As a council, we have activated our structures at the chapter, zonal and national levels to enforce our demands on the expiration of the 30-day ultimatum this week,” the spokesman of the IYC, Ekerefe Ebilade, told THEWILL in an interview.
He said that although the group agreed with the President on his directive to carry out a forensic audit of the Commission and thanked him for it, it kicked against the continued delay and “lack of readiness to constitute the board and leave the running of its affairs in the hands of a sole administrator unknown to the NDDC Act.”
“What we are doing is not just about the IYC. No. Stakeholders comprising governors, National Assembly members and traditional rulers in the region are on the same page with us.”
When he was reminded that the supervising Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, aware of the groundswell of opposition in the region, recently appealed for calm and restated his mission, which is to reposition the Commission for “uncommon development,” Ebilade said the minister was employing delay tactics to carry out his plans.
He added that Akpabio twice made the IYC to shelve its planned protest.
He said, “When he told us that the forensic audit would be completed in April, we shelved the protest. He came again and said it would be completed in July. He then came up with the appointment of a sole administrator unknown to the NDDC Act. This has become a pattern of their plan.”
Speaking recently through his media aide on Project Monitoring and Special Duties, Mr Anthony Ekene Onwuka, Akpabio had corrected what he said was a wrong impression being created about the progress of work at the Commission.
“NDDC must succeed and the Niger Delta must register uncommon development. What will I tell my children tomorrow? I must stamp my trademark- uncommon transformation,” the minister said.
According to Onwuka, the NDDC is an interventionist agency that has been marred by poor leadership and corruption until the appointment of Akpabio as Minister of the Niger Delta. The minister is facing opposition, he said, because he “wants to change the narrative in the Niger Delta and ensure lasting development.”
State governors in the region do not think so. In fact, as early as January, 2021, they called for the suspension of allocation to the Commission, pending the constitution of a new board.
Restating that position penultimate week, Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State called for the restructuring of the NDDC to drive the development of the South-South region.
Obaseki, who made the call during a meeting with the South-South Zone Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party at Government House, Benin City, said the Federal Government was deliberately starving the Commission of funds in order to frustrate the drive for development in the region.
He said, “The current structure of the NDDC has caused underdevelopment in the region, with the Federal Government not showing any concern. The government seems not to care about the scandals associated with the NDDC.
“What is going on in the NDDC today is totally untenable. The Commission can’t do any work in Edo and other states in the South-South. You can’t use the resources meant for the region to develop other regions of the country.”
Elder statesman and frontline South-South leader, Chief Edwin Clark, had cause to wade into the matter when he dissociated himself from the group and restated his support for the position of the South-South governors who have called for the restructuring of the Commission.
A group known as the South-South Front, after a recent meeting, noted, “The leaders (like) the Ijaw National Leader, Chief Clark, has shown his support for the NDDC management.”
But on a Tuesday, May 11, statement which he personally signed, Clark denied being in support of Akpabio’s firm grip on the NDDC and its finances.
Clark said, “I wish to dissociate myself from this group that I do not even know. My position on the activities of Akpabio has been consistent and it is in the public domain. I am in support of a forensic audit to unravel the stinking corruption in the Commission, but not the activities of Akpabio.
