Niger Delta Coalition for Unity and Progress has vowed to resist any attempt to make a former governor of Delta state, Emmanuel Uduaghan, chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
A statement by Comrade Brakemi Akokari, national coordinator of the coalition posits that Uduaghan was part of the rot at the NDDC.
Akokari states: “Our attention has been drawn to a report in the Daily Independent of Sunday December 29 2019 under the headline ‘Uduaghan may emerge new NDDC Chairman.’ In it, the newspaper speculated that President Muhammadu Buhari may appoint the immediate past governor of Delta State as Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in a new board to be appointed by the president.
“While we do not quarrel with the newspaper’s right to speculate for whatever interests, as the story clearly indicates, we need to place the current situation in the NDDC in perspective and state clearly why the speculation and the contents of the report have to be taken not only with a pinch of salt but with heightened circumspection by all stakeholders in the development of the Niger Delta and Delta State in particular.
“We are convinced that it is a kite being flown by the paper which is owned by Chief James Ibori, former Delta State Governor and cousin to Dr Uduaghan, and points to an agenda of the discredited Ibori political family to hijack the resources of the NDDC. However, we believe that this is not the time to speculate on the board of the commission, given the rot in the NDDC.
“The decision of the president to appoint and recognize an Interim Management Committee for the NDDC is his prerogative and this we recognize, even if we do not agree with this decision. What is of immediate interest to us, and which should concern everyone in the region, is the forensic audit which the president has promised to undertake.
“We are bothered that this audit has become a bogeyman being used by the Presidency to delay the inauguration of a board for the NDDC, especially given that the Interim Management Committee has been in office for close to three months now. We want the president to pursue the quick audit of the NDDC and thereafter inaugurate the board.
“The report only goes to confirm what we already know that Dr Uduaghan has been lobbying to be the Chairman of the NDDC and for the dissolution of the senate-confirmed board so as to actualize his ambition. In this he has for company his cousin and predecessor in office Chief James Ibori. Let it be known that we do not want a return to the discredited system where the PDP cabal will return to the new NDDC. We are opposed to any attempt to the discredited Ibori political family of Delta State taking control of the NDDC, knowing what the whole world knows of the ways and manner they have mismanaged the resources of Delta State.
“We will resist any attempt to have Uduaghan as Chairman of the NDDC or in any other capacity in the Commission. NDDC belongs to all of us and the people of the Niger Delta region will not play second fiddle to a regime of the Ibori political family, especially not in the NDDC.
“As Governor of Delta State between 2007 and 2015, Dr Uduaghan nominated his cousin Val Arenyeka as Delta State Representative on the NDDC board and his own Personal Assistant (PA) Tuoyo Omatsuli as Executive Director Projects, in which position some of the questionable contracts awarded by the NDDC were contracted. It follows simple reasoning therefore that such a person complicit in the rot of the NDDC should have nothing to do with the commission, especially not at this period where it is being restructured to deliver on its mandate.
“It is also very clear that, as the Independent newspaper reported, the plan of the discredited cabal is to play on the ethnic differences in Delta State to advance their cause. To claim that Uduaghan will be given the job over Bernard Okumagba because the latter is Itsekiri gives the impression that the position is reserved for the Itsekiri. For the avoidance of doubt, the oil producing local governments in Delta State cur across several ethnic nationalities such as Ijaw, Isoko, Urhobo, Ukwuani and Itsekiri. For an ethnic group to lay claim to a position in the NDDC is an invitation to anarchy which should not be allowed.
“We call on all stakeholders to desist from heating up the polity with ethnicised campaigns for positions in the NDDC Board.”
