NDDC: Group cautions against Uyo meeting, urges board inauguration

The Community Development Communities of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas (CDCNDOAGPA) has urged the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Obong Umana Okon Umana, to shelve the 5th meeting of the National Council of Niger Delta (NCND), organized by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and NDDC which is scheduled to begin in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital on Monday, September 12, 2022.

According to the Chairman, Board of Trustees of CDCNDOAGPA, Joseph Ambakederimo, the Minister should rather concentrate his efforts to ensure the inauguration of the substantive board of NDDC to enable them to “take office and reposition the commission to meet its set mandate for the people of the region.”

The group further cautioned that “the relative peace we presently enjoy in the region is about to be compromised, therefore we call on the organizers of this charade called meeting of the National council on Niger Delta to put it off.”

Ambakederimo urged the Minister to take all necessary steps “as soon as possible to ensure the corporate governance structure is allowed to function. Anything short of this shall be met with stiff resistance from our people who are already being mobilized for any action necessary for a positive change in the commission. The interim management contrivance should not be allowed to continue in office a day more than necessary. This illegality has drawn out for too long,” he stated.

CDCNDOAGPA also wondered “what the NCND gathering for five days is meant to achieve for the region under a skewed, uninspiring and corrupt leadership as presently composed to run the affairs of an institution as serious as the NDDC except the leadership does not understand what they are superintending.”

According to the group, since the creation of the National council on Niger Delta (NCND) “we haven’t seen anything that has been done differently in the region, to whose benefit is this council we do not know, and what they have achieved so far remains to be seen. The National Council on Niger Delta with no clear mandate is a scheme used to squander scarce resources that would otherwise be used for the development of the region that is crying for attention.”

Ambakederimo tasked the membership of NCND and asked if the Council is “comfortable with the happenings in the NDDC as it is today? Have they not heard of the financial hemorrhage that has occurred in the last three years of this interim sole administrator management? The stealing that is going on has blighted the period covered by the forensic audit. Member states are being shortchanged, the commission has been run from peoples’ bedrooms at their whims and caprices for this period of time. Does the council not know that the Act that sets up the NDDC has no provision for interim management? Yet they have agreed to gather for five days to discuss what? This jamboree must stop.”

According to the group, “this conference to our mind should be called off immediately because it is not meaningful at this time, it is wastage and uncalled for. What is paramount and should be agitating the mind of the Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs should be the inauguration of the substantive board to enable us have a true corporate governance structure and not all of these diversionary tactics to further perpetuate illegality with impunity.”

CDCNDOAGPA reminded the Honourable Minister that “some of us that stood for him to ensure he is brought in to bring succour to our people are beginning to get dissatisfied with his attitude of non-compliance with extant laws. We call on our people to continuously resist the unbecoming attitude of interlopers and busybodies from within and without to allow the NDDC function properly to the benefit of all of us in the region.”

Ambakederimo reiterated that “we have mentioned many times that there will be dire consequences if the inauguration of the substantive board is further delayed. The relative peace we presently enjoy in the region is about to be compromised, therefore we call on the organizers of this charade called meeting of the National council on Niger Delta to put it off and concentrate on getting the board inaugurated to take office and reposition the commission to meet its set mandate for the people of the region. This is not too much to ask for the people we represent. We have sensitized our people enough for them to take action.”

The group also queried “the talk of the release of a white paper on the forensic Audit before the substantive board is inaugurated as unacceptable to the people. In order words this comes across to us as an unending interim system that some persons have come to embrace, and going further if we may ask, who is afraid of a substantive board for the NDDC anyway. Is the Honourable Minister comfortable with what he has inherited in a flawed system that he cannot prevail on the President to change course taking the plight of the people into consideration?”

The Community Development Communities of Niger Delta Oil and Gas Producing Areas (CDCNDOAGPA) therefore demanded for “an NDDC that will work for everyone and not a few. We want an NDDC that is free of all encumbrances, scandals and baggage. This should be everyone’s expectation and not this macabre dance they put out every now and then. Inauguration of the Board is what should be paramount at this time and this should be the focus and nothing else. We therefore call on the Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Obong Umana Okon Umana to confer with the President and do the needful by ensuring the inauguration of the Board of NDDC, as soon as possible.”