Charles Ogunmola and NDDC Nomination: It’s time for a paradigm shift in Ondo State

It’s no longer news that bar all odds, the Nigerian senate will begin next week the screening and confirmation of Charles Ogunmola, an Ondo State indigene and top-notch technocrat as Executive Director(Projects) on the board of NDDC.

If screened and confirmed, it’d be the first time an indigene of the state would serve as an executive director on the board of the commission since its establishment beyond the statutory nomination of one person per member states serving on the board of the agency as a commissioner.

Using the privileges conferred on him by the Constitution and the NDDC Act, President Muhammadu Buhari had last week forwarded Ogunmola’s name and that of 14 others to the senate for confirmation as the management board of the interventionist agency, meant to fast-track development in all the oil-producing states of the country.

While Ogunmola’s nomination has elicited commendation and plaudits from the quarters of those who appreciate his prodigious capacity for quality service delivery and experiential knowledge garnered over the years in the private sector, some disgruntled elements have been clamouring for him to be dropped using some primordial sentiments and nepotistic narratives that have denied the state and the oil-producing communities in particular organic development over the years.

For those conversant with the NDDC and its responsibilities to the mandate states, it is crystal clear that the commission has not lived up to expectations since its inception due largely to perennial corruption and lack of capacities of those at the helm of management of the agency over the years.

The foregoing, therefore, may have necessitated President Buhari, in his last attempt to clean up the agency, on one hand, and on the other hand, to repurpose it for efficient service delivery, to fill it with men and women of requisite skills and capacities to man the board of the interventionist body in his latest nominations to the senate for screening and confirmation.

To say the least, the new team, if and when confirmed by the Senate, is a star-studded one, which, will in no distant time, begin to revamp and repurpose the commission to meet its constitutional expectations and even surpass them to the potential admiration of the long-suffering people of the oil-producing states.

Given the context of what the President wants to achieve with his repositioning of the agency for optimal service delivery and zero corruption policy, it is therefore unthinkably lamentable that some elements will frown at the nomination of Ogunmola, an uber-sharp technocrat, on the vague premise that he is not from any of the oil-producing communities.

For clarification, Ondo State is a beneficiary of the 13 per cent derivation fund essentially because it’s an oil-producing state. The fund, if judiciously utilised, is meant to finance developmental projects across the length and breadth of the state. It is the same reality that qualifies the state to be a part of the NDDC right from inception. The same logic presupposes that any indigene of the state, regardless of his senatorial district or local government, is eminently qualified to be appointed to the board of the commission in compliance with the NDDC Act.

Meanwhile, it has to be stated that for giving a sense of belonging to the communities, where crude oil is extracted, the President also nominated an indigene of Ilaje Local Government, Gbenga Edema, to represent the communities on the new board to be constituted, if screened. Other things being equal, Edema, a former chairman of Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC), is expected to be the ears and eyes of the oil-producing communities on the board of the commission as a commissioner.

It should be noted that the commissioner representing the state is the one the NDDC Act says must come from an oil producing area. The executive director (project), which is non-political, can come from anywhere in the state so long it is an oil-producing state. Therefore, in the strict eyes of the law, President Buhari has not broken any law by nominating Ogunmola who is eminently qualified to fill the position of executive director(projects) on the board of the commission.

For the sake of arguments, it is pertinent to ask those disgruntled elements sponsored by some shadowy politicians protesting against the nomination of Ogunmola: what real development have those indigenes of the oil-producing communities who had served on the board of the commission in the past brought to the areas? If a vox pop is conducted today in the oil-producing communities, I am cock-sure the respondents would curse those who had represented them in the past.

It may interest unsuspecting members of the public to know that the oil-producing communities in Ondo State had hitherto been denied or shortchanged the benefits accruable to the areas by thieving politicians and their local collaborators until Honourable Bunmi Tunji-Ojo(BTO) emerged as the chairperson of the Committee on NDDC in the House of Representatives in the current political dispensation.

In the last three years or thereabouts,
BTO, from Ondo North( no oil-producing community yet),has facilitated more impactful developmental projects for the state more than any indigene of the communities who had the privilege of serving on the board of the commission or who had the privilege to serve as the chairman House Committee on NDDC. I gathered very reliably that some developmental projects BTO influenced for some Politicians to be executed in the Oil Producing Areas were siphoned into private pockets unlike the ones he influenced for his his own people in Akoko. The projects and sundry empowerment projects of BTO to boost human capital development in the areas have been hailed by objective and even partisan commentators as the best of their kind in recent times. Yet, BTO is not from an oil-producing community!

Quality service delivery and effective representation can only be given by those imbued with the right mental capacities, skills, and values for excellence. All these go beyond the primordial sentiment of who is indigenous to a place or not. The most important thing is that the person being appointed can deliver with a sense of fairness. And this rightly speaks to the nomination of Ogunmola, an intellectual juggernaut and service-oriented person to serve as executive director(projects) on the NDDC board. To even cap it all, he is even an indigene of Ondo State, an oil-producing state, which qualifies the state to be a part of the NDDC!

Any surreptitious or subterranean attempt by parasitic politicians who only believe in their own ‘stomach infrastructure’ to the detriment of the masses, to deny Ondo State the benefit of having Ogunmola on the board of the NDDC will be counterproductive which in the long run will spell doom for the state. This is a given. And to worsen the matter, President Buhari reserves the exclusive right to appoint someone else from another state other than Ondo State to serve in the capacity of executive director(project). If that happens, that’ll be a double whammy of tragedies for the state. It’s time for a paradigm shift about representation being anchored on capacity rather than the ambiguous concept of indigene-ship. A word is enough for the wise!

Oladapo Kayode is an Ondo State-born legal practitioner.