New NDDC board faces jury over genuine development for region

By BEN EGUZOZIE

• Wike pushes regional development approach

• Economists call for Marshall Plan approach

• As regional masterplan abandoned for years

• New board promising sweeping changes 

The jury is now out to see what changes the newly inaugurated board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) will bring to bear on the much neglected oil producing region of Nigeria after over two decades of its existence for which it had been better known for sleaze than for delivering on its mandate of development for the region so that its people can benefit from the gift that mother nature had bestowed in their ground – crude oil.

Nigeria, a largely mono product economy, relies on crude oil for over 80 percent of its earnings and over 90 percent for its foreign exchange revenues, which it has used to push the development that its people currently see, but much of it stolen by corrupt military and civilian politicians and civil servants in government.

For the new NDDC board, the jury is out to see what kind of approach it will bring in to deliver the goods. Many development economists had long hoped that the boards and management over the decades of its existence would have chosen to approach the task with the same approach as the Marshall Plan put in place after World War 2 by the United States to help rebuild Europe. But that has been far from the case. Instead, politicians have seen the NDDC as a cash cow for their personal enrichment, and by so doing taking a stance against the people of the region.

With a master plan for development collecting dust and not acted upon by past boards and management, now Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State is pushing a regional development approach to the new board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in order to do things differently. And it is an approach that he believes will strictly commit the government quango to the holistic development of Niger Delta states.

Governor Wike gave the charge when the new chairman of NDDC board, Lauretta Ifeanyi Onochie, led other members of the board on a courtesy visit to him at Government House, Port Harcourt.

The governor urged the Onochie-led board to embrace the conceptualisation and implementation of projects like the construction of highways with bridges to link the oil region states.

According to him, such projects will serve as economic corridors to ease interstate movements and promote socioeconomic integration within the region.

“I read what you said that things will be done differently. I want to believe that you’re sincere. We talk about underdevelopment, but look at the amount of money that has passed through NDDC, then look at the projects on ground,” Wike said.

The Rivers governor could not be saying anything new. From inception in 2000, the federal government quango was saddled with a mandate to spearhead regional development of the harried oil region. The regional development masterplan (NDRDMP) document had been gathering dust on the commission’s shelves since the management quietly kept it aside to pursue what many describe as a rogue agenda.

How far can the Onochie board go to bring a new vista to the NDDC, which has been anything but a development-oriented agency. From time-to-time, reports of huge sleaze have outsized and tainted the commission’s activities.

Only in 2019, billions of naira worth of phoney projects by the commission were in the public glare. The outgoing Muhammadu Buhari administration, in a face-saving move, established a forensic audit of the commission’s activities. Till date, not a word has come from the audit committee’s report.

According to Governor Wike, NDDC’s board and management should not be given to portfolio or political contractors, but to competent ones who will stick to delivering quality and enduring projects.

“Regional development projects can link up two states. Those are the kind of things NDDC should go for, and give it to competent contractors. Leave these political contractors; all these portfolio contractors,” Wike said, asking the new board to take a prompt from his projects in Rivers State. “If I didn’t use Julius Berger, and had used these political contractors, you won’t have seen anything here. From 2019 till now, we have done 12 flyovers by Julius Berger. You know how much we are talking about and you can replicate that,” the governor said.

He said he envisaged a situation where NDDC could devote huge sums annually to executing projects in each state of the region, without distorting the existing development master plan.

He accused the commission of becoming a cash cow for politicians.

For Lauretta Onochie, the NDDC board chairman, they came to ask for guidance and seek Wike’s advice on how best the new board could break away from the provision of poor services and projects known of NDDC and replicate his quality project delivering mantra across the region.

But the new board’s visit follows on the heels of its inauguration by Umana Okon Umana, the minister of Niger-Delta Affairs, who charged the members to be faithful in implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Commission’s forensic audit.

Like the choice of Onochie as chairman, the commission’s forensic audit, from inception, has been shrouded in deep controversy. But Umana has directed the new board under the garrulous lady to “look into allegations of irregular employment from 2019 and follow up on the ongoing personnel audit in the Commission to make sure all cases of employment during the period under review were in accordance with extant rules and regulations of the service.”

Samuel Ogbuku is the managing director who takes over from Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua, who had been acting for a couple of weeks.

The minister stressed the need for the board and the management to strictly adhere to the Procurement Act, as well as the financial regulations to ensure prudence in the management of limited resources.

“Every contract above the threshold of management is to be referred to the Ministerial Tenders Board of the Federal Executive Council. Any breach of contract approval limits will attract severe sanctions,” Umana said.

He urged the board members to focus on the completion of ongoing projects, advised them to shun the lure of “award of spurious and indiscriminate new contracts,” so as to help in repairing the negative public perception of the NDDC.

Onochie, however, has promised sweeping changes at a commission which has been anything but scrupulous in its more than 22-year history.

She appealed to Nigerians, especially people from the Niger Delta region, to give the new board a chance to prove it can deliver on their mandate.

“We are going to do things differently so that the people of Niger Delta can benefit from what Nigeria has been investing in the region. In the past, many investments in the Niger Delta have found their way to Abuja, London, Dubai and elsewhere,” she said.

According to her, the new board’s goal is to change the narratives from the current situation where youths sought for special assistants (SAs) jobs to being employers of labour.

She said the Buhari administration was committed to youth development, and would do things possible to equip youths in the region with necessary skills to compete with their peers from other climes.

“Since its establishment by the NDDC Act, the Commission has received a lot of flak from all and sundry.  Consequently, the board, in addition to all the guidelines issued by the Honourable Minister, will be looking to review the existing policies and guidelines to enable us to have a clear sight as we hit the ground running. We cannot continue working with failed templates and expect to get a different result. Apart from the physical development of our region, we will be paying extra attention to the empowerment of our teeming youth population, equipping them with requisite skills to enable them to catch up with their peers in other parts of Nigeria and elsewhere,” the new board chairman said.

How far the board can deliver would be left to its activities headed by a much-controverted character, under a catastrophic administration that has left more than 133 million Nigerians in multidimensional poverty.