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The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has dismissed speculation that it plans to relocate its headquarters from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State to Abuja or Lagos.
The Executive Secretary, Simbi Wabote, disclosed this in Yenagoa, after the Ijaw Youth Council (Central Zone) staged a temporary shut down of its office on Thursday over allegations that it had opened offices in Lagos and Abuja and was working to leave the state.
The Executive Secretary who received a delegation of the IYC World Wide, led by its President, Mr. Pereotubo Oweillami, described the insinuation as “wild rumours and figments of some persons’ imaginations.”
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Wabote, who therefore challenged the IYC national leadership to manage their zonal organs and curtail their overbearing tendencies, explained that the board’s new corporate headquarters was nearing completion.
He said: “Our 17 storey headquarters building project in Yenagoa has got to the 12th flour. It might end up being the tallest structure in the whole of the South-South and South-East when it is completed in 2018. How can we leave such a building and move to Abuja or Lagos?”
He added that it established liaison and zonal offices in key cities and oil producing states for operational efficiency, just like other federal agencies and state governments.
“NCDMB is a federal institution and has stakeholders across the country and we need those offices to transact business effectively.”
Responding to the request by the IYC President for training and employment opportunities, Wabote promised that the board would train youths from Ijaw extraction and other Niger Delta tribes in leadership and specialised skills, with a view to making them self-reliant.
He explained that employment opportunities in the oil and gas industry were limited, hence the need to train youths in other sectors of the economy like agriculture and construction.
