News
Row over Pro-NDDC Protest in
Rivers
Current protests by
suspected hired youths in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State
capital, in favour of the Managing Director of the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC),
Mr. Chibuzor Ugwoha, has sparked off a row in the oil and gas
region. A Port Harcourt-based lawyer, Mr. Chuks Uguru, told
Watchdogreporters’ correspondent, on a telephone interview on
Monday that such protests hardly yield any fruit in the country.
According to him,
''there were protests in some parts of the country against some
ministerial nominees of President Goodluck Jonathan. As we
speak, the Senate confirmed their nominations and they are
ministers today. The NDDC has been a matter of serious concern
in the past few months, and ’l think, there is need for
government to carry out a drastic surgical operation there''.
Co-Ordinator of Egbema
Movement for Justice, a community group in Edo State, Mr.
Robinson Uroupa, said most oil-bearing communities were yet to
benefit from NDDC. ''As a group, we are of the view that NDDC
has lost focus and it has become a beehive corrupt activities.
No forms of organised protest will safe the management from
indictment''.
For Mr. Solomon Okpo of
Eket Collective, a thinktank group in the Eket axis of Akwa Ibom
State, ''we are of the view that the present NDDC should be
scrapped, and their mandate handed over to core professionals
like those of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)''.
According to the Eket
group, ''NDDC is not delivering on its mandate. The largely
sponsored protests are coming too late because the authorities
have and know the facts about the mess in that place. Unless
government removes politicians from the place, it will continue
to be a conduit pipe to line individual pockets''.
But, as criticisms
against the protests grow, the NDDC boss, Ugwoha, has denied
sponsoring the youths. He is claiming that the action of the
youths was ‘based on their understanding of the situation at the
interventionist agency.
For some nine months
now, the NDDC has been embroiled in a crisis as a result of
accusations and counter-accusations, all bordering mainly on
alleged unwholesome financial deals.
Chairman of the
commission, retired Air Vice Marshal Larry Koinyan, had last
year, requested President Jonathan to suspend the embattled
managing director for allegedly transferring the sum of $20
million, around N3.00 billion, of the development agency’s fund
from a Union Bank Account in the United Kingdom to another
account domiciled with the First Bank also in the UK.
Some top NDDC
officials, who were allegedly involved in the transfer deal,
were suspended but later recalled upon the intervention of the
former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF),
Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, who then said government, will look into
the matter.
Apparently embarrassed,
President Jonathan summoned Koinyan, Ugwoha and he two Executive
Directors of the commission to Abuja on Wednesday, and informed
of a fresh probe panel, to look into the matter and related
ones.
Senator Anyim Pius Anyim,
the incumbent SGF, on Wednesday, inaugurated the probe panel
headed by Mr Steve Oronsaye as chairman; Mr Raymond U Brown,
Secretary and Mr Bamidele Aturu, Mr B. O. N. Oti, representative
of the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), Senator Bassey Ewa
Henshaw, Mrs Kori-pamo-Agari and Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim as
members.
Their terms of reference
among others, are to take, assess and evaluate a sample
inventory of some NDDC projects; to evaluate the contractor’s
pre-qualification process in the commission; to evaluate the
roles and relationship of the board, management and staff of the
commission and to evaluate the procurement practices of the
commission and its compliance to the letter and spirit of the
Public Procurement Act.
The main purpose of its
assignment was to review the process and challenges facing the
NDDC, with a view to making recommendations to the government to
address institutional weaknesses and guide on constructive
intervention to address various issues. The Oronsaye panel has
two weeks to conclude their assignment, which takes off today,
Monday, August 1.
In the mean time, the
Thursday protest which lasted for hours, disrupted activities at
the commission and smooth flow of traffic along the busy Port
Harcourt-Aba Expressway. The protesting youths carried placards
with inscriptions such as ‘'eave the MD alone’; Ugwoha has tried
for the people of Niger-Delta''.
Special Assistant to the
MD on Media, Abraham Ogbodo, was still insisting as at yesterday
that his boss did not hire the protesting youths. “The youths
as irreducible stakeholders understand the issues as well and
they have
openly declared their
position regarding developments at the NDDC based on their
understanding. of their being sponsored by the MD does not arise
here because the president has not set up a committee to sack
anybody but examine all issues with a view to harmonizing the
contending tendencies at the commission into a synergy that can
move the Niger-Delta forward”, Ogbodo said.
|
