Activist Asks Buhari to Dissolve Incoming NDDC Board

A rights activist and Convener of Civil Society Groups (CSOs), Mr. Solomon Adodo, on Wednesday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately dissolve the recently screened Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) board nominees.

Adodo said the dissolution is necessary in order to enthrone a transparent and corrupt-free system that guarantees the welfare of the common man.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, the activist urged President Buhari to rather constitute an unfettered forensic audit of the NDDC under the watch of the interim management committee.

“We are here to cry out against the serial gang rape of our commonwealth and crude deprivations of the Niger Delta people orchestrated by a handful of fiendish self-serving elites in the region," he said.

 

Adodo, while explaining that the quest for rapid infrastructural development of the Niger Delta region to assuage the adverse effects of petroleum exploration and douse rising youth agitation informed the establishment of the NDDC in 2000, lamented that very insignificant achievement has been recorded.

He further lamented that the good intentions of the government were deliberately sabotaged and truncated by those who turned the agency into a cash cow for a few unpatriotic elites of the region at the detriment of the collective interest of the people of the region.

“It is on this note that we herein passionately convey our total gratitude to President Buhari for directing a thorough forensic audit of the financial accruals and expenditure of the Commission since inception.

“This is about the biggest singular blow being dealt the monster of corruption by the current government on account of the fact that trillions of naira have allegedly been misappropriated or stolen from the NDDC.

“The step taken by the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, in an interim management committee to oversee the forensic audit is very welcome and deserving of the support of all in the region," he said.

Adodo averred that facts showed that some senators from the Niger Delta region have held the NDDC by the jugular and consistently bled the Commission.

The activist alleged that when the board could not meet these demands through a normal process, the budget of the Commission for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 were not sent to the National Assembly, and in its place, the NDDC management was intimidated into awarding emergency contracts only for three years thereby abandoning the Niger Delta development plan and legacy projects.