Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, veteran journalist, former Managing-Director of Daily Times, who also pioneered the Board of Directors of the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC), spoke on the birth of the Commission, it’s trajectory up to attainment of 25 years. In an interview with with STELLAMARIES AMUWA, Ugochukwu reiterated his position on the misconception that the NDDC is one-stop-shop for resolving the avalanche of problems bugging the zone. Commending the management led by Dr Samuel Ogbuku, for his resolve to make a difference. He drew attention to the debilitating effect of constant reshuffling of the Board and Management of the Commission, non-release of budgeted funds, the recourse by state appointees to to the Board to see their states at being at war with the NNDC management, as foisting negative drawbacks on the Commission. Excerpts.
Please can you tell us exactly what led to the establishment of NDDC?
Well let me start by congratulating the NDDC , it’s been a long struggle for the commission and I’m happy to say that we have noticed a change, a new determination to recreate the commission and I want to thank the current management in place for what they are doing to revive the spirit that was there at the beginning of the NDDC.
When the idea of the NDDC started during the presidential campaign of former President Olusegun Obasanjo after he visited Warri and some states and towns in the Niger Delta, he came up with the belief that something special should be done to tackle the problems in the Niger Delta. Beyond what you saw in the neglected area there was also agitation by the youths of the Niger Delta at that time.
When he was sworn-in he already had prepared the NDDC Bill. The NDDC bill was the second bill he submitted to the National Assembly, the first was the ICPC bill then, the NDDC bill. It took a while before it got passed and there were amendments in the bill by the National Assembly that the President didn’t like and one of those was that the state governments were excluded from making contributions to the funding of the commission.
The Bill he sent in required that the state governments should also contribute along with the federal government and the contributions of the oil companies of about 2 percent of their capital budget. So, the President refused to sign it into law. The National Assembly over ruled his veto which led to a few other problems as well.
It was about August or September the following year that an agreement was worked out, but then the National Assembly had refused to confirm me, confirming everybody else nominated on the Board. What happened was that my state Governor was opposed to my appointment and the Senators aligned with him, but the president put back my name and it brought in some arguments, but later, after the ding-dong, I was confirmed and the president inaugurated our Board either on the 18th or 19th of November, 2000. Those were the early problems.
Score the Current NDDC Leadership
The situation they are facing are different from the situation I faced, but they are doing well already. They should try and get the governors on board. We didn’t, maybe we were too arrogant in our time. They should do whatever they can to get the governors to buy into their plans and even this new idea of master plan, the federal government itself to should buy into it. The master plan is something none of the other new regional commissions have, let them first of all buy into this NDDC master plan first because the federal government has a lot to do in the implementation. They have more funds than anybody. So, I am glad to hear that they have been proactive in this ruling and I think it is important that they do that.
See what happened during our time, I will take our budget to the President and he will approve and ask us to send details and things like that and we could do some things with the President’s approval, but I don’t think you have that now.
Something else I think they should change is for the law to put NNDC under the Presidency; it shouldn’t be under a minister and I don’t think they have changed that law so I think it is irregular to put NDDC under a Ministry. The President can ask a Minister to do this and he won’t.
Sir, in spite of the fact that you have said that the current board has done well, I want you to say in specific terms, how will you score their performance?
They are doing very well, they are doing a good job and I have said that so many times and in so many places and now I have no revision about commending them.
You know what, so many things went wrong in the ,NDDC two years ago during the Caretaker Committee, Sole Administrators, things being done irregularly and now they are doing very well and they are doing a good job trying to raise hope again that’s what they have achieved and I think the government should let them stay together for some time because that is the only way to get NDDC back to what it should be doing.
We would like to have your views on the several Regional Development Commissions being set up by the Federal Government?
I think setting setting up Regional Development Commissions are very unhelpful and it detracts from the importance of the work NDDC is doing or is supposed to do in the Niger Delta. The politicians jumped into it, parochialism entered into it, and I believe it was our immediate-past President who started it with the North-East, the exact reason I could see he did that was because you know “let me do it for my people” and then everybody jumps into it. No, we shouldn’t have set up all these commissions and as long as I can see, they are going to become agencies for linning the pockets of politicians. They are going to misappropriate all the money and nothing done.
NDDC very soon is going to look like one of the others. We didn’t really need them, but we need the NDDC, because the development problems in the Niger Delta are enormous and let’s make no mistakes about it. I got into an argument with some members of the House of Representatives at a conference; you see, what you need to build a kilometer of road in Bayelsa, can build you 10 km of road anywhere else in Nigeria and that is the reality. In Bayelsa in particular, for instance, there are roads which you couldn’t go very far by road, if you’re a man and live in Port Harcourt and you got a car you couldn’t take it home to show your parents in most parts of Bayelsa because you can’t drive there, you will go to maybe Kayama and park your car, enter a boat which will take you up to a point and then you walk and things like that.
The NDDC has built roads into most of these places. There was a road we were building from Sangbama, the road that went through Ekpeteberry, Southern Ijaw and all that. To start the road, we had to pump sand from a river far away after pumping the sand on a kilometer of road, the Engineer decided to put cement bags without opening the bags they laid out 120 trailer loads on a kilometer of road and pumped water on it so that it caked, that was their stone base and things like that. By the time they laid the asphalt, it was about the height of a palm tree, on both sides you could see the palm trees we are about the same level as the road and you don’t require that anywhere else in the country. Elsewhere, you grade your roads, put your stones and you are done. In fact, let me say this again, I think there is no laterites in Bayelsa, we had to bring it from a nearby state; you know the laterite you use in roads and things like that. For the riverine areas of Ondo, it is the same situation we had to get the laterite from out of state. So, to treat the Niger Delta as any other place is to miss the point completely. The work the nddc is doing we need it.
There Is One Area aside from physical projects that is also very important to the people of Niger Delta and that is the remediation of the Niger Delta environment. With your pedigree in academics and in administration, and also the fact that most of these essential components in terms of environment is missing in the Act which makes it difficult for the NDDC to operate, what will be your recommendations?
Let me correct something, the NDDC also has responsibilities for environmental issues in the Niger Delta. They have a Directorate for Environment, but you are right it is not so clearly defined that the NDDC can enforce. Quite often, people question that when NDDC people try to enforce: “where are you coming from? we have the Ministry of Environment and we have other bodies. Part of why the the problems persist is the reason why quite much has not yet been done. It’s like many things were created in multiplicity of agencies which are running into each other all over the place and the money is not really being accounted for that is what is happening.
The problem is serious like you said, the Ogoni issue is the most publicized issue of them all, but you see the HYPREP and Shell was compelled to make a deposit $1billion into an escrow account, the federal government should have matched that and I think the one Shell paid has been spent and the evidence is not on ground that is the kind of problem we are facing. So, no attention has been paid to the environmental destruction and when people talk about the Niger Delta, people who have been enduring, they don’t realize the pain they go through.
There are issues, like in the olden days, I spent some part of my childhood in parts of the country called Ikot-Abasi, which was know as Denga Opobo then, you could actually catch fish in the area with your hands in the streams, but, it is not possible now because the fishes near their homes have gone long ago. When there is acid rain from all that flaring of gas, when you put your zinc on your building, the acid rain destroys it and the acid also goes into the soil and the soil is not producing what it should produce. These are the problems.
If you go near Egbema, there’s one boundary there. When you drive through the road even inside an air conditioned car, you must feel the heat, the name of the place is ORMOCK. You must feel the heat inside your car, our population is also going down, Shell built a poultry there to empower the people and people had all this new types of chicken so now the flaring goes on round the clock and there is a saying there that you can’t go through your wife when the cock crows and the new cock was crowing all the time and their population was going down in answer to their tradition. Honestly we were in Bayelsa in the last quarter of last year and some of us shed tears so many people don’t live in their houses because it was taken over by flood.
What is your call because whatever the Federal Government will do unless there is synergy by the leaders at the grassroots there, nothing will come out of that place. As an elders statesman, what will you tell the new group of leaders most of those in the area because now there are many in primary school and also in secondary school. What is your call to them to have the feelings of the people at heart so that they can take them out of this bondage. Have you thought about a memoir on your experiences?
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I have not written my memoir and they have abused me because of it, but I know I will still do that. The problem there shouldn’t be left for the Niger Delta people alone. The problems in the Niger Delta should not be left to the government not to talk about the federation and others, it shouldn’t be left to them alone. NDDC should do a new Master Plan. That one we did has crashed and even if it is to update it, it won’t cost you what it cost us. We had about 120 Nigerian consultants who did the best studies and most of them were from the Niger Delta and I think most of them are still there available. I believe they will be able to do the entire Master Plan, and I think it’s will not cost them as much as we spent.
The child you birthed is 25, what advice do you have for us from now going forward?.
I think I have hinted on them already, going to the corporation of state governments, get the Master Plan, hopefully they will buy into it,. Don’t let people tell you that NDDC alone will develop the Niger Delta, the Act doesn’t give you the money to do it alone, but with so many agencies. I think you are doing well as it is. Just remain focused and then I will say to the government, let them get up, let any Board that is set up stay longer because that is always the problem. We scatter them after every two years or even less and then they come and start afresh. You don’t build a system or a development agency like that.
