Ijaw Youths Vow To Resist Part-Time Board For NDDC

Igoniko Oduma Yenagoa 

The purported recommendation of a part-time board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in the forensic audit report has been kicked against by Ijaw youths under the auspices of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC).

In statement on Sunday, the council's spokesman, Ebilade Ekerefe faulted the recommendation and described it as unacceptable, saying it was a violation of the law establishing the NDDC.

Ekerefe vowed that the IYC would resist a part-time board "at all cost", stressing that the recommendation was "the handiwork of self-styled politicians who desire to turn the NDDC into their own personal enterprise."

He also berated the President Muhammadu Buhari for his refusal to constitute and inaugurate a substantive board for the commission, despite the submission of the report of the audit exercise.

He noted that the speed with which Buhari inaugurated the boards of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), while that of the NDDC remained unattended to, even after the conclusion of the forensic audit, had exposed his alleged bias for the people and development of the region.

According to him, the situation had shown that the earlier insistence of the Federal Government that the audit report should be submitted before the new board of the agency would be put in place amounted to mere excuse.

Ekerefe said, "We want to warn that any strange clauses smuggled into the NDDC aside from the constitution of a substantive board will be resisted and the activities of the commission crippled. We can categorically say that the region has lost greatly due to the deliberate delay of the constitution of the board. 

"Let it be on record that since the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime, the NDDC has been functioning without recourse to the Act which establishes it and that has contributed largely to the underdevelopment of the region, despite the forensic audit which was used as an excuse for the delay of a substantive board.”

The IYC said it had accepted the submission of the report but called on the President to, without delay, set up a functional board for the commission and "not allow myopic and self-centered politicians to provoke violence in the region and further discredit his administration."