A pan Niger Delta coalition network under the aegis of Niger Delta Peace Network ( NDPN) has expressed great concern over the lingering issues bordering on the constitution of a substantive Board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as it has berated the Governors, Senators ,House of Representative members and youths groups from the South-South geopolitical zone for keeping sealed lips over the delay in the inauguration of the board, two years after Senator Godswill Akpabio took over as the supervising Minister of the Commission.
The group alleged that the Minister has turned the NDDC, a collective heritage of the Niger Delta people, into his cash cow under the guise of an Interim Management arrangement and a phantom Forensic Audit which was staged-managed and skewed to benefit himself and his cronies.
The National President of NDPN, Mr. Dakumo Ebiowei, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, called on well meaning stakeholders from the region to rise up to the occasion in one voice and put a stop to the obvious looting of public funds that has been going on in the NDDC since 2019 when the Interim management contraption was foisted on the Commission.
Mr. Ebiowei said the delay in the inauguration of the board was a deliberate act by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to frustrate the Niger Delta people in order to continue to appropriate the monthly NDDC fund through his proxy who is the Sole Administrator of the Commission.
According to the leadership of the coalition, the Minister’s futile attempt to exonerate himself from the inexplicable delay in inaugurating the NDDC board, is embarrassingly puerile because it contradicts what he has publicly said and done in the past two years on the saddle as supervising Minister of NDDC.
The NDPN President, in the statement, also expressed worry why the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Chief Rotimi Ameachi, and the Minster of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, were not showing any concerns about what has been happening in the Niger Delta region, as the actions of Senator Akpabio has squandered the goodwill of the All progressives Congress (APC) in the area.
According to him, the two prominent Cabinet Minsters are all equal stakeholders in the affairs of the region as issues concerning the region is not the exclusive preserve of Senator Akpabio.
“Akpabio’s one man show at the NDDC is making all of us in the region look docile before the nation. Every now and then, he comes up with different stories to justify the delay in setting up of a board for the commission†he said.
He said the region has quality cabinet Ministers in the Federal Executive Council as well as a ranking Senators and House of Representative members and very enlightened stakeholders, noting that all the people of the region cannot be taken for a ride by the Minister.
The region, he said, was bigger than an individual, and urged the people not to fold their hands and keep quiet over the embarrassment that is going on concerning the inauguration of the Board
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