By Emeka Alex Duru
Critics may be right in dismissing the probe of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by the House of Representatives Committee, as a flicker that will soon fizzle out without effects. Similar probes in the past had ended up circus of entertainments, without any person being held to account for his/her actions in office. The House of Representatives panel instituted in 2008, to probe the power sector, had ended abruptly as the Review Committee set up by the House threw out 84 of its 88 recommendations. The Power Committee was led by Godwin Ndudi Elumelu. With the way the exercise was dropped, no one was found guilty for the mismanagement of the almost $6 billion invested in the power sector reforms under the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency.
Such was the case in the 2012 Herman Hembe-led House Committee probe of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The highpoint of the exercise was that Hembe ended up the victim of the probe as the SEC Director General, Arunma Oteh, openly indicted him of having compromised his position as chairman of the committee. Oteh had openly accused Hembe of lacking in integrity to preside over the public hearing, alleging that before the commencement of the probe, he had requested for the sum of N39 million from the Commission to fund the investigation. Aside the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charging Hembe to court, nothing else was heard of the House probe.
This is why many fear that the inquest into the activities of the interim management committee of the NDDC may go the way of others. It will also widen the index of corruption in the country. Revelations at the NNDC probe committee have been mind-blowing.
In one instance, the IMC was accused of spending a whopping N81.5 billion within seven months. Curiously, the money was not spent on rebuilding the infrastructure in the Niger Delta and social benefits for the people but mostly on such frivolities as condolence visits, project design consultancy, hiring of chairs and other petty engagements.
Akpabio, Pondei cause commotion
Particularly shocking was the disclosure by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, that most of the contracts from the agency were awarded to National Assembly (NASS) members. More ridiculous was the dramatic manner in which the Acting Managing Director of the Commission, Daniel Pondei, ‘passed out’ when he questions were posed to him on the expenditure pattern of his committee.
Nigerians react
Nigerians are not finding the developments at the probe funny. For them, the sordid revelations at the House Panel, do not put the country in good shape before the international community. An integrity and advocacy group, The Network for Best Practice and Integrity in Leadership, has for instance argued that the mismanagement of NDDC is a collective indictment on both the legislative and executive arms of government, influential politicians and the system that enables such brazen corruption.
It called consequently called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take decisive steps, beyond mere statements to end the embarrassing situation. “Public perception in the nation at the moment is strong with the view that many among the accusers and the accused in the current NDDC scandal, are most likely, unfortunately compromised”, the organisation stated in a letter, made available to TheNiche.
The group warns that unless the President takes urgent, meaningful decisive action now by putting in place a judicial investigative panel with the powers to not only indict, when found culpable but also prosecute and bring to justice, those that are guilty of defrauding the nation through NDDC, whether they are in the legislature or executive, he may unwittingly be encouraging fraudulent individuals among the political class to continue to see the NDDC and perhaps, the newly established North East Development Commission (NEDC) and other such regional intervention agencies as plundering grounds to satisfy their avarice.
The mess in the Commission began to be exposed since the president ordered a forensic audit of the agency, leading to the appointment of three acting managing directors and controversial revelations of huge financial and procedural infractions involving several highly placed individuals. The fear is that more underhand activities may have taken place in the management of the Commission, giving it out as a bungled dream.
The making of NDDC
Established on June 5, 2000, by former President, Obasanjo NDDC was given the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of the country. Its establishment was largely in response to the demands of residents of the Niger Delta, a populous area inhabited by a diversity of minority ethnic groups. The ethnic groups, including the Ijaw and the Ogoni had during the 1990s confronted the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies in the region. They had in fact, put up demands for greater autonomy and control of the petroleum resources in the area. Their grievances were justified by the extensive environmental degradation and pollution from oil activities that had operated in the region since the late 1950s.
The demand had often resulted to violent confrontation with the state and oil companies, as well as with other communities. Consequently, oil production had been affected and in some cases, disrupted by the activities of the restive youth or organisations. These had been extremely costly to the Nigerian oil industry and the multinationals. It was to arrest the ugly trend that NDDC was established.
The commission operates under the mandate of improving social and environmental conditions in the South-South region. Since its establishment 20 years ago, NDDC activities have been seen from different perspectives by both critics and admirers of the agency. The opinion of many is that the development profile of the agency has not matched the fund at its disposal.
Niger Delta before NDDC
Before then establishment of the commission, successive governments had put up arrangements in the efforts to meet with the recommendations of the 1958 Henry Willinks Commission which on account of the peculiarity of the Niger Delta terrain, had recommended it as deserving special attention.
Late President Umaru Yar’Adua, had on his inauguration on May 29, 2007, for instance, identified the Niger Delta question as a major challenge to the evolution of the Nigerian nation. Consequently, the administration put in place an action plan that aimed at assuaging the feelings of the people. A body was inaugurated to draw up an action plan for re-engineering the region. This was followed with the creation of a full-fledged Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs to tackle the peculiar problems of the region. Thereafter, came the amnesty and rehabilitation programme for former militants from the area.
Yar’Adua’s actions for the region were not without cause. The atmosphere of uncertainty in the region at the time was taking turn for the worst. Essentially occasioned by years of deprivation and abject poverty often brought about by official negligence and criminal collaboration by even the elite of the region, the restiveness in the Niger Delta had taken many phases and impacted gravely on the indigenes of the areas, non-indigenes and even the national economy.
At a time, aside the regime of brigandage and cultism that was increasingly assuming the order of the day in the area, its youths had added kidnap of Nigerians and expatriates as ways of expressing their grievances to the Nigeria’s skewed federal set up. In the face of the confusion in the area, petty criminals garbed in the toga of fighting for the common cause went on the prowl, causing harm on the people and destroying properties estimated in billions.
NDDC was intended as an intervention agency to address the shortcomings in the development profile of the region. But with the ugly details of the sleaze in the agency, the idea behind its creation may have been misplaced.