New Telegraph

NDDC: Sordid tales of once a hopeful agency

The Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC) was created in 2000 by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The aim was to have an agency that would cater for the needs of the region in development areas with a view to stemming the feeling of inadequacy by the people of the area. Twenty years after, it has been a sorry story with allegations of corruption flying round the agency as PAULINE ONYIBE reports from Yenagoa

Established to arrest the issue of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta region, the Niger Delta Development Commission is a Federal Government agency established by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000. One of the core mandates of the Commission then was to train and educate youths of the Niger Delta region to curb hostilities and militancy and to the develop key infrastructure in the area. The NDDC was created largely as a response to the demands of the Niger Deltans to confront the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies in the area. NDDC however was created as a child of destiny to bring succour to the people of the region but has it been used to achieve the aim? The answer is no.

Right from the first executive chairman of that commission, Onyema Ugochukwu, to the present Interim Management Committee manned by Kemebradikumo Pondei, there have been series of alleged corrupt and sharp practices there. Ironically, the commission has all along been led by Niger Deltans.

So there is no issue of a Northerner or a Westerner trying to underdevelop the region because he or she is not from the region. Everybody that has found himself or herself in that commission has gone to loot and go forgetting the core mandate of the commission.

Recently, the corrupt practices of the Niger Deltans that found themselves in these exalted offices have been on the news starting from the presidential amnesty office to the recent alleged corrupt activities going on in NDDC. Just recently, news again filtered in that the commission headed by Pondei shared a whooping sum of N1.5 billion to the staff of the commission as coronavirus palliatives only while the poorest of poor in the various Niger Delta communities were dying of hunger. It was also said that trillions of naira have been sunk into the NDDC since its establishment in 2000.

Just recently, there was a revelation that the Nigerian Police Force and the staff of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) shared N3.14 billion as palliatives for the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, NDDC officials shared N1.5 billion as COVID-19 palliatives while the Police got N475 million to buy face masks and hand sanitizers.

It was gathered that when invited to the podium to give explanations on the fund, which was captured on the subtitle “emergency payments”, Pondei admitted before the adhoc committee that N3.14 billion was spent by the NDDC to cushion the effects of COVID-19 on staff of the agency. He further claimed that part of the money was paid to the Police, youths, men and women to cushion the negative effects of the pandemic and to forestall violence that might erupt in the Niger Delta region.

He also said that N10 million was paid to an unnamed top management staff of the commission (believed to be the MD) while N7 million each was given to two other senior staff of the NDDC. Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi (APC – Ekiti North), who heads the committee, further hinted that 148 NDDC staff got N3 million each, 157 staff received N1.5 million each, 497 staff were paid N1 million each while 464 staff were paid N600,000 each as COVID-19 relief. Reading further from the documents, Senator Adetunbi said: “The NDDC IMC expended on other issues, including COVID-19, to the total of N81.509 billion, from October 2019 to February 2020 and from February to May 30th, 2020.

He gave the breakdown of the N81.509 billion as Community relations: N1.3 billion; condolences: N1.2 billion; consultancy: N3.8 billion; COVID-19: N3.14 billion; duty tour allowances: N486 million. “Impress (October to May, 2020): N790 million; Lassa fever: N1.956 billion; legal services: N900 million; logistics: N31 million; maintenance: N220 million; medicals: N2.6 billion; overseas travel (February to May, 2020): N85.6 million; projects payment: N38.6 billion; public communication: N1.121 billion; security: N744 million; staffing related payment (October to May, 2020), including payment of salaries and other allowances: N20.9 billion; engagement of stakeholders (February to May, 2020): N248 million; and travels: N56.5 million” respectively. Adetumbi further explained that out of the total N81.509 billion, “the first IMC spent N22.5 billion from October 2019 to February 2020 while the second IMC spent N59.1 billion between February and May 2020. The House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, on Monday July 13, met Pondei, over the alleged N90.4billion extra- budgetary expenditure by the commission from 2009 to 2011.

The committee was said to have cited the audit query by the Auditor-General of theFederation that the NDDC allegedly paid N23.215billion to contractors for 2008 to 2012 for 150 projects now stalled. Responding, Pondei explained that the extra-budgetary expenditure arose because of the late passage of the agency’s budgets in the period under review. On the alleged 150 abandoned projects, he said the NDDC was making efforts towards recovering the funds from various contractors through the banks that raised Advanced Project Guarantees on their behalf.

However, Pondei, had threatened to resign if allegations of corruption levelled against his team of IMC, were not proven. To exonerate herself however from the whole saga, the immediate past Managing Director of the NDDC, Mrs. Joy Yimebe Nunieh, said out of the entire N81 billion spent by the commission between October 29, 2019 and May 31, 2020, only N8 billion was spent by IMC under her leadership between October 29, 2019 and February 28, 2020.

Nunieh, had accused the Niger Delta Affairs Minister, Godswill Akpabio, of orchestrating her removal from office, but the minister said she was being insubordinate. Nunieh served as NDDC acting MD between October 29, 2019 to February 28, 2020 before the committee was sacked. She alleged on the sidelines of the Senate investigative hearing probing NDDC’s misappropriation of N40 billion that Akpabio engineered her removal from office for failing to dance to his tunes regarding the spending of the Commission. Nunieh said: “Nobody makes any payment in NDDC without Godswill Akpabio’s approval.

“When we first came, on the day of the inauguration, he said to me in the car, ‘Madam MD, if you don’t do what I say, the same pen with which I used to sign your paper is the same pen I’ll use to remove you.” But reacting to Nunieh’s allegations, Akpabio said the former NDDC MD was removed because of insubordination and for skipping the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) programme.

He said: “She was relieved of her appointment because of insubordination.” Akpabio said while he featured on Arise TV News “My ministry, which supervises her, wrote several letters to her but she never responded to one. The minister said he had received petitions from anti-corruption agency that Nunieh didn’t have the requisite qualifications to work as acting MD of a commission. He said Nunieh was removed after the discovery that there was no record in the national headquarters of NYSC to prove her participation in the scheme. Reacting to the latest development at the Commission, Moris Alagoa, an environmental rights activist, wrote on his Facebook page that; “This Federal Government interventionist agency (NDDC) has vision, mission and mandate.

“There was also a Niger Delta development Master plan which must have gulped so much money to prepare and consultants have since smiled to the banks. “The Niger Delta Master plan attracted so much noise during the Timi Alaibe era; with stakeholders assembled to look at it. Unfortunately, nothing is heard about that supposedly laudable master plan for years now. “In as much as this interventionist agency tried to make itself visible in the landscape of Niger Delta states, however, a lot of abandoned projects have since become the order of the day.

“Incidentally, some of the abandoned projects are still associated with budgetary provisions annually; even though some projects seemed to be fake, ghost projects. “In Bayelsa State for instance, some of the projects suffering abandonment includes: Korokorosei/ Azuzuama road, Polaku/ Sabagriea road, Opume /Okoroba road, Kaiama shoreline protection, Okoloba shoreline protection, Nembe (Ogbolomabiri) shoreline protection, Nembe, (Bassambiri) shoreline protection, Opume (nonexisting) shoreline protection, Khongo shoreline protection, Sangana shoreline protection, Olugbobiri shoreline protection, Adagbabiri Skills Acquisition centre, Ekewo hospital, Amassoma shoreline protection, etc.

“With the above and more, it is baffling hearing about the sailing naked dance of corruption and what appears to be laced in frivolous and prodigal spending by those saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the agency meets its vision, mission and mandate for the Niger Delta.

“I don’t subscribe to keeping silent or threading with caution; we have to call a spade a spade. Those allegedly looting; are they looting on your behalf or on my behalf ? “They get richer and strengthen their own estates against our collective interest.

So, should I be expected to thread with caution because of ethnicity or what? “Just as I have the liberty to speak on the subject matter, if the Federal Government makes wrong moves, nothing will stop me from speaking up. We should face issues according to their merits and specificity. For how long must we be complaining about flood and coastal erosion, need for shoreline protection, functional health and educational facilities, portable Water, electricity, good roads and transport system, security in the Niger Delta? “Saboteurs should be identified and punished; including those collaborators from outside the region. Any funds meant for the development of the Niger Delta should be committed to that end.”

He concluded. One basic truth is that the amount of money pumped into the commission is not commensurate with the kind of development that is on the ground in the region showing that 90 per cent of those monies go into private pockets. From all indications, many heads will roll concerning the rot in NDDC including those from the region and those outside the region.

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