Senior lawyer and human rights activist Femi Falana SAN has spoken on
the dangers of the Buhari administration flouting the law setting up the
agencies of the federal government.
Speaking at a lecture to mark the Third Anniversary of the
administration of Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu in Akure on Wednesday,
February 27, Falana said the administration is flouting the law setting up the
Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by appointing an interim management
committee for the agency.
The rights activist noted that the administration’s actions on the NDDC
and other such agencies where the laws have been subverted leave the actions in
these agencies open to litigation, a point that has been raised by rights
groups and lawyers since the government set aside the Board for the Interim
Management Committee (IMC). In Falana’s words, “The management of the economy
includes the appointment of personnel, the board members.
These agencies that are owned by the country have the appointment of
board members made alone by the president; it is not quite right and I know
that you can make a case. It is so bad that some of the appointments have
nothing to do with the law.” On the NDDC, he says that the Act provides that
“there shall be 19 members of the Board of NDDC, one of them shall come from
the state, but what has happened sir? . . . The President decided to
jettison the Board and appointed an interim committee. I am submitting here
that there is no provision in the NDDC Act for an interim committee.”
He also came down hard on the administration for appointing more
directors for the NNPC than the Act provides for, including the appointment of
the Chief of Staff to the President Abba Kyari as a member of the Board. He
said these appointments leave the decisions of the agencies open to litigation
adding that: “the danger is that any contract signed by that body can be set
aside. Anybody can go to court and say that some of those who took part in the
meetings are not known to law and so, do something.”
The position pointed out by the senior lawyer raises grave concern for
the forensic audit and other actions being managed by the interim management
committee of the NDDC, which experts say can be questioned because the IMC is
not known to law.
The president who had appointed the Board was on the verge of
inaugurating it when the Niger Delta Minister, Godswill Akpabio announced the
appointment of a 3-man IMC which was supposed to stay for three months. The IMC
is now into its fifth month and many indigenes of the Niger Delta region
believe that it is part of a game plan to run the multi-billion naira agency
without broad representation and with minimal oversight from the National
Assembly and stakeholders in the region, a point alluded to by Falana. He added
that he was also surprised that the Senate decided to pass “the budget of NDDC
after the embarrassing appointment of interim committee.”
A section of Falana’s comments which has gone viral, reads thus
(unedited): “I am submitting that the management of the economy includes the
appointment of personnel, the board members of these companies.
These agencies that are owned by the country have the appointment of
board members made alone by the President it is not quite right and I know that
you can make a case. It is so bad that some of the appointments have nothing to
do with the law. I take NNPC, the cash cow. The NNPC by virtue of Section 1 of
its Act shall have six members.
Today, it has nine members, including somebody who put his own name
there – the Chief of Staff to the President. The danger sir, learned senior
advocate, the danger is that any contract signed by that body can be set aside.
Anybody can go to court and say that some of those who took part in the
meetings are not known to law and so, do something. NDDC, this concerns Ondo
State.
There shall be 19 members of the Board of NDDC, one of them shall come
from the state, but what has happened sir? The Ninth Senate, Senator Adetunmbi
you were one of those who screened and when it was time for the President to
inaugurate them he decided to jettison the Board and appointed an interim
committee.
I am submitting here that there is no provision in the NDDC Act for an
interim committee. Ondo State must be one of the states that should question
the appointment of the interim committee. Two, the Senate surprised all of us
when it decided to pass the budget of NDDC after the embarrassing appointment
of interim committee.”
Vanguard
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