The current drama that has enveloped
the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is needless. It has come about
because the current administration has treated the Niger Delta Region as a
conquered people to be disregarded and treated without dignity. So, the law
governing the NDDC has to be set aside to accommodate an illegal contraption
such as the Interim Management Committee, and to do this, spools of tales of
misdemeanors must be spun to paint a picture of a people against themselves.
Yet, all the President needed to do to address whatever defects there are in
the NDDC is to order a forensic audit like it did in the NNPC while keeping
the Governing Board in place in line with the law. No other section of this
country has been treated in such a manner where an external audit of a
development agency becomes a basis for setting aside the law setting up the
institution, which provides for a Governing Board to ensure fairness and
inclusion across the region.
Institutions such as the NNPC, NPA
and others are audited regularly, even forensic audits, but no drama attends
them. Their Governing Laws were not set aside. Their Governing Boards were not
put on hold. There were no orchestrated media campaigns. The North East
Development Commission is operating in line with its Governing Act but the NDDC
Governing Act must be set aside for an illegal interim management committee to
operate! It is even more laughable that the only reason for putting up this IMC
and robbing the Niger Delta people of the full breadth of Board representation
of the nine constituent states in line with the NDDC Act is an external audit.
Excuses have never come cheaper!
The NDDC was set up in 2000 directly
under the Presidency to push the development of the oil-producing Niger Delta,
following years of neglect. The transfer of the NDDC to the Niger Delta
Ministry under the current Minister Senator Godswill Akpabio last year is what
has created more problems, with the minister insisting on running it like his
own personal fiefdom. Desirous of controlling the management directly, he
subsequently manipulated to have the Board put on hold, while he appoints and
shuffles the IMC at will, with the strange argument of supervising the forensic
audit.
An external audit is a regular
activity in most organisations and they do not come at the expense of the law
and due process. Again, on the NDDC, this is one of those knee-jerk actions of
the Muhammadu Buhari administration that can’t be understood. How does the
setting aside of the law of an agency guarantee a process that leads to
transparency and positive outcomes? In any sane society, the disregard for the
law governing an institution raises red flags for the integrity of that institution
and every action taken during that period. Put differently, what message does
the disregard for the law send?
Over the last six months since
President Buhari approved the appointment of the IMC in willful disregard for
the NDDC Act, there has been an attempt to justify the illegality on two main
planks, the first being the powers of the president to appoint anyone to an
office, even if in breach of the law setting up that office; and the second
reason is the corruption at the NDDC, which necessitates breaking the law
setting up the Commission.
On the first reason, some have argued
that the president has almost limitless powers to appoint whomsoever he desires
to head a federal agency even when that agency has a clearly defined law
governing its operation. This position is, sadly, a throwback to the period of
military rule when the Nigerian Constitution was suspended and the military
junta could virtually carry on as it pleased. Nothing in a democratic regime
gives the President the power to abrogate the laws governing a federal
institution. In fact, the deliberate, willful, disregard for the law is a
violation of the president’s oath of office, which states, among others, “that
as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I will discharge my duties to
the best of my ability, faithfully and in accordance with the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the law.” We do not want a throwback to the
period of military rule where might is right, even as an affront to the law and
due process.
The second excuse that the IMC is
necessary to supervise the audit is even more tenuous. An external audit is a
regular activity that does not demand the putting on hold of a board. It is not
even healthy, as those who understand governance systems would confirm, to have
a sitting management, whether statutory or interim, supervise the external
audit. In fact, no external auditor worth its salt would subscribe to that kind
of arrangement. What then is the basis for not having the NDDC Governing Board
in place, especially if that board is nouveau, in which case its operation is
not being audited? If it is not ignorance, the motive can only be sinister. It
may be, perhaps, to have the external forensic auditors deliver a compromised
report especially as the appointors of the IMC and the auditors have been named
as godfathers of some of the managements being audited!
While he was Governor of Akwa Ibom
State between 2007 and 2015, Akpabio nominated a Chairman, Managing Director,
Executive Director and State Representatives for the NDDC, who practically ran
the Commission as his proxies. Whistleblowers have named companies linked to
Akpabio that received NDDC contracts running into several billions of naira
while he was Akwa Ibom State Governor but did not execute them. Those
managements and companies are also supposed to be the subject of the forensic
audit but the minister is shielding them using the IMC and his handpicked
auditor. To use the words of Darlington Nwauju, the spokesman of the Niger
Delta Rights Advocates, in a statement by the group: “Our fears are daily
heightened that leaving the NDDC in the hands of an unpatriotic and gluttonous
cabal will spell doom for the collective development aspiration of the peoples
of the Niger Delta.”
Today, Niger Deltans feel like they
are being taken for a ride by the current administration. Even the National
Assembly, which the people should look up to, has failed to assert itself and
defend the Law. The result is the restlessness and agitations that we have seen
in recent times. In comparison, the North East Development Commission is
quietly operating under the Presidency without the drama that has been whipped
up at the NDDC. No parallel can be more grievous, that while the NDDC is
stymied in State-aggravated confusion, the NEDC is operating without drama. In
this, the people of the Niger Delta continue to suffer the physical
underdevelopment of our region. The way out is for President Muhammadu Buhari
to follow the NDDC Act in constituting its management. Not this drama of an ad
hoc IMC.
It should be clear to everyone that
no ad hoc arrangement, like the IMC, can pacify the people of the region, since
it is in opposition to the established law, which is the NDDC Act of 2000, as
amended. That Act takes into cognizance the broad diversity of our region and
our peculiar needs, and provides for a Governing Board and other structures to
guarantee representation in NDDC management. Section 2 Part 2 of the NDDC
Act provides for the president to nominate a chairman, managing director, two
executive directors and one person who shall be an indigene of an oil-producing
area to represent each of the following member States, that is Abia,
Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers states, and three
persons to represent each of the non-oil mineral producing geo-political zones.
Other members are a representative of Oil producing companies in the Niger-
Delta nominated by the Oil producing companies; one person to represent the
Federal Ministry of Finance; and one person to represent the Federal Ministry of
Environment. The Act has no provision for an interim management committee!
In August 2019, a few months after he
was sworn in for a second term, President Buhari nominated 16 members for a
substantive Governing Board in line with the NDDC Act and sent the list to the
Senate for screening. The Senate screened and approved 15 of the nominees as
members of the Board of Directors of the NDDC. The broad representation in the
Board gave most stakeholders a feeling that the tendency to taking an ad-hoc
approach to the NDDC, which was common in his first term, was being put aside.
Just when everyone thought the right thing was about to be done and a
substantive board inaugurated for the NDDC, the Interim Management Committee
was announced. And, with it, has come the subsequent drama of corruption
allegations, staff victimization, nepotism, ministerial interference,
questionable deaths paid writers distorting the issues on the ground,
resignations, and the unconventional experience of an agency of government
threatening an arm of government performing its legitimate functions as
provided for in the Nigerian Constitution!
These illegalities and
inconsistencies in the way and manner the NDDC is managed are what have
produced the media bedlam on the Commission.
Going forward, for the NDDC to find
its bearing, the Federal Government should critically examine the situation on the ground in the light of the current realities and make adjustments as follows:
1. The IMC has to be sacked because
it is illegal as it is not provided for in the NDDC Law. It serves no
functional purpose in the administration of the NDDC as it is not necessary for
the forensic audit and should be disbanded.
2. The NDDC Governing Board, which is
provided for in line with the law, should be put in place immediately to run
the affairs of the Commission.
3. The allegations of corruption and
abuse of office, which has been made against the IMC, must be investigated by
the National Assembly in line with its Constitutional mandate of oversight as
provided for in Section 88 of the Nigerian Constitution. The National Assembly
should probe these allegations made against the IMC and Akpabio, and recover
all funds spent without proper appropriation and in the negation of extant rules of
financial propriety.
4. The Federal Government should
appoint an internationally reputable audit firm to handle the forensic audit,
just as the NNPC audit was done by Price Waterhouse a few years back while the
legitimate board and management were still in place. The board and management of
the NNPC was not set aside for an IMC in order to do the audit.
THISDAY
Comments
Post a Comment