THE DELTA PEACE INITIATIVE
21 Akpa Isemin Avenue,
Uyo Akwa Ibom State. Delpeainitv00@yahoo.com
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI
29th September, 2017
Your Excellency,
President Muhammadu Buhari
Aso-Rock Villa
Abuja.
NDDC: THE TITANIC.
Mr President Sir,
The choice of making this letter an open one was not taken out of disrespect for your office, but a genuine and passionate attempt at ensuring that you get to see it, and act fast before the impact of the atrocities we are set to bring to your notice are manifested at large scale leading to upheaval in the oil sector.
We also wish to ensure that the issues reach your table and not get swept under the carpets by the hawks who are benefitting from the rots currently ongoing in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
As a form of introduction, we are major players and stakeholders in the Niger Delta who have played laudable roles in the developmental agendas of the government especially as it affects the infrastructural development of the oil rich Niger Delta region.
We have been part of the activities of the NDDC which worked very well in the past, before the rot which currently operates and permeates the activities of the NDDC, set in.
We wish to ask these questions sir “Which Ministry supervise or oversee the working of NDDC? We ask this question because the Ministry of Niger Delta has displayed crass incompetence in performing this role.
We recall vividly that during the inauguration of the present board of NDDC, the minister gave a clear mandate to the Board, “the position of this government is to guarantee accountability, transparency, equity and to make the citizens feel the impact of governance also the call of this team by the President was a call to serve the nation and not their individual pockets. We notice that the situation has become worse under the administration of the current Minister f who has shown that he’s a lame duck.
Mr President sir, it will interest you to know that the current board of the NDDC is a misnomer, populated by people who do not share your lofty agenda for the people of the Niger Delta, but daily look for avenues of enriching themselves without caring if the Niger Delta is developed in accordance with the program of the current government.
Without being unnecessarily alarming, we know for sure that if you get to know just one percent of the rots ongoing under this current NDDC board, you will willing forgive the past administration of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Sir, you will remember that we had good sole administrators in the past like Mrs Ibim Semenitari, and Dr Mrs Atako, who performed credibly, had good visions, and committed their time to going to sites to inspect ongoing projects, ensure that the jobs were up to standard before approving payments for such jobs, and ensure proper commissioning of the jobs.
We also wish to let you know that the regimes of such dedicated sole administrators witnessed massive completed and commissioned projects which touched the lives of the people positively and the records are there to show how well these individuals performed.
We wish you will consider going back to such administrative policy of sole administrator for NDDC which worked well in the past.
Sir, it will shock you to note that the several local contractors who have done laudable jobs for the NDDC are today groaning in pains as debt is choking them up because they are not getting paid for jobs done, while yet to be completed jobs awarded to them by the NDDC are not getting funded.
The contractors who were forced by the funding policy of the NDDC to approach banks for loans to execute the jobs, are today losing their properties used as collateral in obtaining loans from bank, because of inability to pay back the loans as and when due.
It will not be an understatement to say that close to a million different jobs awarded by NDDC since the establishment of the interventionist agency, remain uncompleted because they are not being funded by the subsequent Managing Directors appointed for NDDC, even when huge sums of money were made available to them by the government, also their no strong institutions to oversee their lapse.
The worst part of the sad story of the NDDC under the leadership of Sen Victor Ndoma Egba and Isima Ekere is the descent into unbridled greed being anchored and executed by their clan.
It is an open secret Mr President that the current NDDC board today have turned the payment for jobs done by local contractors to a sort of business that is transacted at their own terms.
We state clearly sir, that the Board members have several Special Assistants who are mandated to liase with contractors who have approved Interim Payment Certificates, (IPC) negotiate for bribe in the name of commission which ranges between 15 and 30 percent of the value of the IPC, before such are eventually settled.
The high rate of bribe being demanded under the Sen Victor Ndoma Egba and Isima Ekere leadership of NDDC, is far above the 10 percent that was paid in the past by contractors to past NDDC board in order to get their payment for jobs effected.
It is also amusing that the board is currently polarised as infighting over how to share the huge bribe being collected is tearing the NDDC management apart.
We have it on good authority that the Executive Director, Finance and Administration is about to get suspended over what the board might not want the public to know about.
It is disheartening that the current NDDC board have virtually abandoned the task of developing the Niger Delta, as no developmental project is being done now.
Such jobs that falls within the mandate of NDDC and will impact positively on the people, create job opportunities for teeming Niger Delta youths, like Shore protection/reclamation, Road construction and the likes, have been abandoned.
Rather, the board has concentrated on awarding emergency pothole repairs projects which are mostly on roads that have no direct impact on the lives of the oil producing communities.
Contracts sums for the so called emergency projects ranges between N300 million and N900 million.
These are the contracts that get paid for promptly by the current board while other jobs are abandoned.
Checks at the appropriate quarters Mr President, will reveal that the emergency jobs are awarded without proper and approved bidding processes but through special committees set up to achieve the ignoble purpose of enriching themselves.
The contracts, we wish to state clearly, are awarded to cronies of the NDDC board members while the Minister of Niger Delta who has the mandate to supervise the NDDC is also neck deep in the illegality.
Your Excellency Sir, the suspended 600 contracts with abandoned projects worth 200 billion for lack of funds is hereby been rewarded again by the same board, we can confirm to you that none of them followed due process of award and over 320 award letters where given out last week to various political contractors.
As at today, another set of about 250 emergency repair projects have been lined up, out of which the Minister of Niger Delta, the president most trusted aids and house committee members on NDDC will shared among themselves.
These are the projects that get paid for, while contractors with Interim Payment Certificates (IPC) issued in the last 3 to 4 years for jobs done for NDDC, daily beg to get paid without any positive result from the board.
It will interest your Excellency to note that the Headquarters Building of NDDC which has been under construction since 2003 has not been completed, but the current MD has awarded the rehabilitation of the 7th floor which serves as his office, to Julius Berger Construction Company at a cost that is better imagined.
The MD himself, will not contradict it if we say, the rehabilitation of his office is the only project that looks tangible that his administration has embarked upon since he came into office almost a year ago.
We wonder if the cost of the rehabilitation was put into the building project proper, would not have been better appreciated if the sum was paid to the main contractor handling the construction of the edifice whose IPC has been with the ED Project for years without being attended to.
Mr President sir, for the sake of peace in the Niger Delta, we wish to advice that it will be necessary for you to put together the Presidential Monitoring Committee made up of tested Technocrats, in accordance with the Niger Delta Master Plan, as done in the past, to supervise and monitor the activities of the NDDC management which will keep them on their toes like it achieved in the past.
We nurse a genuine fear that restiveness might spring up in the Niger Delta region once again because the communities are agitated that the huge sums being spent on the needless emergency pothole projects are being recorded as developmental projects for their communities.
Whereas, the communities are not consulted or taken into consideration before the illegalities are perpetrated under the umbrella of their names.
Your Excellency sir, we wish you will cause a thorough probe of the issues listed in this letter and see for yourself the level of atrocities these men have perpetrated under an administration that has zero tolerance for corruption.
We are at pain because several disclosures have been made by companies that remits money to coffers of NDDC without corresponding developmental projects on ground to show judicious usage of the fund,
Recently, the SPDC made public that it has remitted $1.2bn in 13 years, LNLG the sum of N68 billion in 2016, Mobil, Total and Agip also paid in Billions to the commission aside the Billions of naira given to them by the government as budget.
NDDC operates in 9 states of the Federation and we are sure that if this agency had performed its role creditably, the states would have been deducted from the challenges of the government, and the restive jobless youths gainfully employed.
The performance of NDDC do not by any means, justify the huge sums of money that has passed through it either as money generated through companies operating in the oil sectors or the ones from the government purse.
As a stop gap, we wish to advice that Mr President may consider asking the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or in conjunction with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to take a look just into the numbers of emergency pothole projects already awarded by this current NDDC board and see the level of atrocities that will be unearthed.
As for the ones that are in the pipeline to be awarded, it will definitely be mind boggling.
Asking the office of the Auditor-General to carry out this task will not achieve anything because several Auditors sent in the past were successfully compromised.
We will also appreciate it sir, if you can ask the board why no single project has been commissioned since they came on board in the last one year.
One other big problem we notice about the board is apathy to work. Majority of the management team don’t even report for work, thereby, holding the institution to ransom, preventing those who wish to work from doing so seamlessly considering the fact that the works of all members are interdependent.
Sir, we are prepared to furnish you with documentary evidences of the dastardly acts ongoing in the NDDC should it be required including picture of mansions these men have built and acquired within and outside the shores of this nation.
Let it be known sir, that the Elite in the Niger Delta are silent now because they are enjoying the fruits of this illegality, but the youths who should get employed are not. This may boomerang sooner than later.
Questions may be asked by the virile youth on what has happened to the over N500 billion naira that has passed through the NDDC in the last one year without anything to show for it.
We wish that the government will not wait until the youths troop to the streets in protest, before the needful is done.
Your. Excellency, we wish to state clearly that our intention is not to have you sack these men in one clean swoop, but to cause a wake up in their activities and ensure that the NDDC perform the roles for which it was established. But those who may be found wanting should be so treated in accordance with the anti-corruption stance of your government.
We appreciate your undiluted commitment to sweeping corruption out of Nigeria.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria
………………………………….. …………………………………….. …………………………………..
Prof Okaba Benji Mrs Mercy Almonia Barr Christania Bassey
President Secretory Legal adviser
Copy:
Vice president federal Republic of Nigeria
The Senate President
The Speaker House of Reps
The Minister of Niger Delta
The Acting Chairman EFCC
The Chairman ICPC
The Executive Director NDDC
Board Members of NDDC
All Directors of NDDC
The Executives Governors of the Niger Delta States
The speakers Niger Delta States House of Assemblies
First Class Chiefs in Niger Delta
Commissioners of Police in Niger Delta states
The President IYC
Media houses in the Niger Delta
International Oil Companies (IOCs)
