I read Etim Etim’s
piece titled ‘The Hawks are Circling at NDDC Again’ published in Thisday of
February 28, 2020, and came away shaking my head at the tragic ingenuity of the
writer’s logic as he laboured to absolve his principal, Senator Godswill Akpabio,
the Niger Delta Minister, of the mess that he has created in the Niger Delta
Development Commission (NDDC).
The points
mentioned by Abiye Tolofari in the National Template on “Why Buhari must stop
Akpabio’s circus at the NDDC” and a report in The Vanguard newspaper titled
‘’Akpabio has brought NDDC to its knees’’, at which Etim Etim took umbrage,
represent the unalloyed views of stakeholders in the Niger Delta concerning the
management of the NDDC since Akpabio was appointed Minister of Niger Delta.
The whole argument
in Etim’s image-laundering piece for Akpabio is that the minister is doing a
good job at reforming the NDDC and the opposition to his interim management
committee is the handiwork of contractors and politicians, the favourite
whipping boys of Akpabio since opposition to his hijack of the multi-billion
naira development agency started last year when he became Niger Delta Minister.
The point to make
to the writer is that the hawks are not circling again but the hawks have taken
over the NDDC. The writer does not understand the danger. He only needs to ask
Ms. Joi Nunieh who until two weeks ago thought she was a bonafide member of the
pack of hawks the minister leads and stepped out of line only to, as Etim said
in his piece, be promptly fired for ‘insubordination.’
In effect, Akpabio
has turned the NDDC into his personal hunting ground where deals, patronage, and
jobs are dispensed without regard for the core mandate of the agency and with
scant appreciation for its geographical spread. This he has done by subverting
the law setting up the agency under the guise of a forensic audit that seems to
have no fixed timeline. That is the crux of the matter that Etim conveniently
seeks to ignore, rather weaponizing the names of the President and convenient
themes of corruption to obfuscate the minister’s agenda.
The opposition to
Akpabio’s agenda is not driven by political interests but by fundamental issues
of law and respect for the NDDC Act, probity and accountability, and the ruse
of the interim committee. These are the points raised by groups in the Niger
Delta such as Ijaw Youth Council, Oron Nationality Movement, and others
For the benefit of
the reading public, I will take these points one after the other and show why
Nigerians should be circumspect about Akpabio and his agenda.
On the law and
respect for the NDDC Act 2000 as amended, the points raised by stakeholders in the
Niger Delta is that there is a law that governs the operations of the agency,
which is being ignored by the current administration on the prompting of
Akpabio. The NDDC Act in Part 1 Section 2 provides for the membership and
conditions for appointing the Board of the NDDC, which must have representation
from all nine oil-producing states, three non-oil producing geopolitical
regions and other relevant stakeholders, all screened by the Senate. Law does
not exist for the sake of it else we are all consigned to a state of anarchy
and doomed to failure.
The check that the
selection process puts on the Board is a fundamental part of governance which
is lacking in a committee appointed by one man and whose members, as Etim has
told us succinctly in his Freudian slip, must be loyal to one man, the
minister. That certainly is not the intention of the governance process set out
in the NDDC Act.
It is important to
note that this is an issue that would not go away and is not a convenient
narrative of politicians and ‘corrupt persons.’ Questions of fact are not open
to debate, except in the warped agenda of partisan interests. Only last week at
the Third Year Administration Lecture of Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu
SAN, Femi Falana repeated the fact of the illegality of the Interim Management
Committee of the NDDC when he said as follows: “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.
NDDC, this concerns Ondo State. There shall be 19 members of the Board of
NDDC, one of them shall come from this state (Ondo 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 the interim committee.” So the facts of the matter here
are very clear.
The second point on
which stakeholders in the Niger Delta oppose Akpabio’s schemes is on the issue
of probity and accountability.
First, he was a
commissioner in Akwa Ibom State between 1999 and 2007, and Governor from 2007
to 2015. As governor, he nominated at least a Chairman, Managing Director and
State Representative for the NDDC, which was the practice then.
As stakeholders we
know that the governors and the party feasted on the NDDC in these years. As a
benefactor and a beneficiary in those years, how can Akpabio be trusted to
deliver a flawless forensic audit? Contrary to the oft-repeated lie, core
community stakeholders have in fact called for a probe of the commission long
before Akpabio was made a minister so that we can get to the bottom of the mess
in the NDDC, but we do not believe that for a probe or forensic audit to be
meaningful the legal governance structures must be set aside.
This is because
even as we speak the current NDDC budget running into billions has been
approved and is being disbursed by the interim management committee appointed
by Akpabio without responsibility to stakeholders in the region!
That brings us to
the third point, which is the interim committee itself and the fact that it is
simply a smokescreen for selfish schemes to undertake deals and influence the
direction of the commission away from its set agenda.
We know of deals
that have been made on Lassa fever contracts, water hyacinth contracts,
contractors being extorted and such other schemes, which we will release in due
course. You do not need an interim management committee to manage a forensic
audit, a substantive Board should do that. So why does Akpabio not want a
substantive Board? Because he cannot hire and fire as he wills and the checks
and limitations are too complex for him to manipulate.
So the truth which
Etim Etim seeks to obfuscate is that the hawks have taken over the chickens
nest, the ones who should be kept away from the chicks have become their
caregivers. That is the problem with Akpabio’s control of the NDDC and why his
Interim Management Committee must be disbanded and a substantive board
inaugurated in line with the NDDC Act. Nigeria is a country of laws and a
government should not disregard the laws of the country.
By Chima Nwike In Vanguard
Chima Nwike writes
from Port Harcourt, Rivers State
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