Decries FG’s constant dissolution of its Board. Calls for greater support by the FG, States, LGA, oil companies
By Eze Chukwu
Two former Chairmen of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu and Sen. Victor Ndoma-Egba, have exposed why the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) failed to achieve set goals, blaming it on constant interferences of the Board and Management of the Commission.
Speaking at separate interviews at the weekend in Abuja, the former Chairmen noted that constant and irregular changes in the management and board of the Commission made the NDDC irregular and unproductive.
Chief Ugochukwu, who was the pioneer Chairman, added that the tendency for state governors of the Niger Delta to nominate inexperienced people to the Commission, with a mandate that are clearly unproductive, but seeing themselves as competitors rather than people who should pursue a common purpose, distracted, rather than help the Commission attain set targets.
Sen. Ndoma-Egba in reiterating the point, added that no one stakeholders can make the NDDC work uptimally, stressing the need for synergy to be built among the stakeholders, including the beneficiary state governments.
He noted that federal budgetary allocations alone, which is hampered by the inability to meet set receipts, have also not made budgeted money available to the commission to carry out projects it had set out to tackle.
The former Senate Leader, stressed the terrible negative impact of not allowing Boards and Management of the Commission to work for a long time, emphasising that “whenever boards are dissolved, the new set spend time to synergies and before you know it, they are flushed out, which has stalled the ability of NNDC to make meaningful impact.
Chief Ugochukwu on his part, stated that it was a misnomer to believe that NDDC alone can resolve all the problems in the Niger Delta, pointing out that the proliferation of Regional Development Commissions, have all the more made a joke of the reasons for setting up the NDDC.
The two former Chairmen commended the current Board and management led by Mr. Chiedu Ebie and Engr (Dr.) Samuel Ogbuku (Chairman and Managing-Director respectively), for remaining focused on their set targets, advising them to re-evaluate and bring up fresh Master Plan for the commission as roadmap for targeted and measurable progress.
“The current Board and Management should try and get the state 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. I am glad to hear that they have been proactive in this regard and I think it is important that they do that.
“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 or that and he won’t do it.
“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 and I think the government should let them stay together for longer period, probably be reappointed, because that is the only way to get NDDC back to what it should be doing.
“I think setting up Regional Development Commissions are very unhelpful and detract 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,” Chief Ugochukwu stated.
On his part, Sen. Ndoma-Egba added: “Let’s make no mistakes about it. We really need the NDDC, because the development problems in the Niger Delta are enormous.
“The problems in the Niger Delta should not be left to the government not to talk of the Federal government alone, but all the other stakeholders. it shouldn’t be left to the NDDC alone. However, NDDC should do a new Master Plan to be in sync with realities.
“I must also tell you that the current management are doing well. If government can retain them longer, provide more resources for them, they will be able to have a lot better performance”.
