The Niger Delta Elders Forum has demanded that the Federal Government should bring to an end the interim management of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and constitute a Board for the Commission in line with the Law establishing it.
The Federal Government had in December, 2020, appointed Barrister Effiong Akwa as the Sole Administrator of the NDDC.
Reacting to an article by the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Asesina titled, ‘Buhari and the NDDC’, the National President of the Forum, Tonye Ogbogbula, in a statement said:
“The submissions made by Mr Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari on the Niger Delta Development Commission in an article published on Friday, February 4, 2022, in some Nigerian news media exposes the administration’s continued disdain for the Niger Delta people.
“In the article, a vacuous commentary bereft of substance, Adesina offered nothing new on why President Buhari is yet to inaugurate a board for the NDDC over the past two years. Rather, he mouthed the same empty statements on the forensic audit under which guise the NDDC has been hijacked by a cabal in the last 2 years.
“The truth is that nobody was against the conduct of a forensic audit in the NDDC. The issue was that everybody agreed that the NDDC Act should be complied with in the Governance of the Commission during the period of the forensic audit.
“It was illegal to have contraptions of interim management committees /sole administrator to begin to administer the NDDC and arbitrarily utilise the monthly sums due to the NDDC.
“All that was needed was for the Federal Government to appoint a credible forensic auditor to conduct the forensic audit of the NDDC, like the Federal Government did in the NNPC while having a Governing Board in place for the Commission in line with the law.
“The forum demands ending the illegal Interim Management/sole administratorship at the NDDC, inauguration of the NDDC Governing Board in line with the NDDC Act to represent the nine constituent states, publication of the Forensic Audit report for all Nigerians to see. (The report cannot be hidden because it is supposed to be a public document) and prosecution of any indicted persons.”
