On the Home Page of its website, nddc.gov.ng, its Mission Statement screams at the wary visitor: –
“To offer a lasting solution to the socio-economic difficulties of the Niger Delta Region and to facilitate the rapid and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.”
And for the singular reason of this much touted mission statement, every visitor to the offices or website of the Niger Delta Development Commission, must involuntarily be wary. Set up by the Obasanjo-led PDP administration under the instrument of the Niger Delta Development Commission (Establishment, etc.) Act of the 12th day of July 2020, the Commission has by all accounts, and to all intents and purposes, failed to fulfill the objectives for which it was set up.
According to Section 7 of the NDDC Act, the Functions and Powers of the Commission include –
(1) The Commission shall-Formulate policies and guidelines for the development of the Niger Delta area
(a) Conceive, plan and implement, in accordance with set rules and regulations, projects and programs for the sustainable development of tie Niger-Delta area in the field of transportation including roads, jetties and waterways, health, education, employment, industrialization, agriculture and fisheries, housing and urban development, water supply, electricity and telecommunications.
(b) Cause the Niger-Delta area to be surveyed in order to ascertain measures which are necessary to promote its physical and socio- economic development,
(c) Prepare master plans and schemes designed to promote the physical development of the Niger-Delta area and the estimates of the costs of implementing such master plans and schemes.
(d) Implement all the measures approved for the development of the Niger- Delta area by the Federal Government and the member States of the Commission.
(e) Identify factors inhibiting the development of the Niger-Delta area and assist the member States in the formulation and implementation of policies to ensure sound and efficient management of the resources of the Niger-Delta area.
(f) Assess and report on any project being funded or carried out in the Niger-Delta area by oil and gas producing companies and any other company including non-governmental organizations and ensure that funds released for such projects are properly utilized.
(g) Tackle ecological and environmental problems that arise from the exploration of oil mineral in the Niger-Delta area and advise the Federal Government and the member States on the prevention and control of oil spillages, gas flaring, and environmental pollution.
(h) Liaise with the various oil mineral and gas prospecting and producing companies on all matters of pollution prevention and control.
(i) Execute such other works and perform such other functions which in the opinion of the Commission, are required for the sustainable development of the Niger-Delta area and its peoples.
Business objectives, let alone government objectives, like the ones set out in Niger Delta Development Commission Act, can not be any clearer or action-oriented. These are weighty, nevertheless measurable and achievable statutory functions of the Commission ought to have transformed the entire Niger Delta into a Dubai of sorts in Nigeria within the first decade of the existence of the commission if those who run it ever give heed to their avowed Mission Statement.
And it was not for lack of funds that the commission failed. Far from it! It was lavishly funded. Section 14 of the Act provides that -The Commission shall establish and maintain a fund from which shall be defrayed all expenditure incurred by the Commission.
(1) There shall be paid and credited to the fund established pursuant to subsection (1) of this section –
(2) From the Federal Government, the equivalent of 15 percent of the total monthly statutory allocations due to member States of the Commission from the Federation Account; this being the contribution of the Federal Government to the Commission-
(3) 3 percent of the total annual budget of any oil producing company operating, on shore and off shore, in the Niger-Delta Area; including gas processing companies.
(4) 50 percent of monies due to member States of the Commission from the Ecological Fund,
(5) Such monies as may from time to time, be granted or lent to or deposited with the Commission by the Federal or a State Government, any other body or institution whether local or foreign.
(6) All monies raised for the purposes of the Commission by way of gifts, loan, grants-in-aid, testamentary disposition or otherwise; and
(7) Proceeds from all other assets that may, from time to time, accrue to the Commission.
The Niger Delta Development Commission was thus a statutorily well fed cash cow. And practically too. But its milk did not reach the people it was set up to nourish. According to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, when he was receiving the report of the recently concluded forensic audit of the commission, a humongous sum of some 6,000,000,000,000 Naira (Six Trillion Naira) comprising of N3, 375, 735,776,794.93 (Three Trillion, Three Hundred and Seventy Five Billion, Seven Hundred and Seventy Six Thousand, Seven Hundred and Ninety Four Naira, Ninety Three Kobo) as budgetary allocation and N2,420,948,894,191.00 (Two Trillion, Four Hundred and Twenty Billion, Nine Hundred and Forty Million, and Eight Hundred and Ninety Four Thousand, One Hundred and Ninety One Naira) as income from statutory and non-statutory sources, accrued to the commission between the years 2001 and 2019.
What did the Commission do with all that money? Where are the development projects and infrastructure it was established to build? On every function of the commission listed in the Act that established it, it failed glaringly and woefully. It could not even complete its own secretariat that it started as OMPADEC as far back as 1996 until the focused intervention of the present government compelled it to do so only this year, 25 years after!
The NDDC failure is even more dismal in Warri and environs. In flagrant disregard of sub-section 2 of Section 7 of the Act, viz. “In excising its functions and powers under this section, the Commission shall have regard to the varied and specific contributions of each member State of the Commission”, the commission relegated the entire Warri Kingdom, which contributes over 28% of the country’s revenue from Oil and Gas to the status of a mere onlooker.
As part of activities marking the 5th year anniversary of his coronation, the immediate past Olu of Warri, His Majesty Ogiame Ikenwoli, on the 10th day of September 2020, undertook a tour of NDDC and Federal Government projects in the Kingdom. It was lamentation all the way.
(1) At Koko in Warri North Local Government Area, His Majesty urged President Muhammadu Buhari to revoke the contract for the shoreline protection project in the town awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). He expressed grave displeasure over the shoddy job by the contractor and which had even been abandoned, thus allowing the ocean surge to wipe out parts of the historic town of Koko. Putting it very bluntly and candidly, he said that the project was not only shoddily done but had also been abandoned by the firm handling it on behalf of the commission. “We thank (President) Buhari for the shoreline protection project, but my people are not happy with the job done so far and we are rejecting it,” the monarch concluded pointedly.
(2) The Koko-Oghoye Road, also in Warri North Local Government Area, which will traverse Delta, Ondo, and Lagos States on completion, was conceptualized in 1955 through the instrumentality of late Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh who was then the Federal Commissioner of Finance. The project was awarded to Levant Construction Limited in 2010 by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), 10 full years ago and it is nowhere near completion. The monarch had to literally beg for what rightfully belongs to his people: “We appeal to the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and the Honorable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to complete this road and open the Benin River corridor all the way to Lagos by road.”
(3) The $16bn Gas Revolution Industrial Park and EPZ Project in Ogidigben in Warri South-West Local Government Area is another project the immediate past Olu of Warri had to beg for despite its immense benefit to the nation at large in terms of gas utilization and savings from gas flaring. “When the ground breaking ceremony was done in January 2015, our hopes were very high for the nation at large. Since then, however, not much has been done”, the monarch lamented.
(4) Sometime in 2016, the NDDC invited tenders for some 375 projects in the Niger Delta. 61 of these projects were allocated to Delta State. Of these 61 projects, however, not a single project was allocated to the Warri Kingdom which accounts for over 80% of the Oil and Gas revenue accruing to the State. Miffed at this utter disregard and show of disdain, the then member representing Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Honorable Daniel Reyenieju, took to his Facebook Page to rally his people: “Indicate your readiness to march on NDDC!!!”, he wrote in desperate rage.
With such glaring neglect and dereliction of responsibility by the Niger Delta Development Commission, it was therefore not surprising that perplexed by the glorious possibilities that the humongous investment in the commission ought to have achieved but which it did not achieve, President Mohammadu Buhari had to order a forensic audit of the accounts of the commission from inception up to 2019 when the order was given. And no sooner was the order given than all sorts of maneuvers, political and otherwise, began to play out solely with the ulterior motive of scuttling the audit.
The most intriguing of these maneuvers played out on the stage of the amphitheater that is our National Assembly. The gates opened at about 12 noon on Monday, 20th day of July 2020. On the cast were the Acting Managing Director of the Commission, Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei; the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio; and members of the House Committee investigating alleged financial rascalility in the Niger Delta Commission. The committee was chaired on this auspicious day by none other than the current representative of Warri Federal Constituency, our own Honorable Thomas Ereyitomi, the only representative that the Warri people, who contribute over 28% of the nation’s oil and gas revenue, have in the entire National Assembly.
Watching expectantly from the sidelines, one could not but relish in advance the prospect of a dramatic irony playing out in the confrontation between the NDDC and the House Investigative Committee. For here was a commission before an investigative committee presided over by the representative of a people whom it has consistently excluded from membership of its Board and Management Committees and also cruelly marginalized in the allocation of development projects in the two decades of its existence despite the fact that this people contribute about a third of the funds that sustain it. There was going to be some lashing here, no doubt.
So, enter Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei, Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission flanked by members of his team. Making what he must have considered a professorial dissertation, the professor said that N34bn was given to the commission by the Federal Government between January and May 31, 2020 and that between the 20th February and the 31st May 2020, his Management Committee had only spent a paltry N59.1bn out the N81.5bn spent by the commission from the 31st October 2019 to the 31st May 2020. Out of this N51.9bn, he continued, N38.6bn was spent on capital projects which contracts were awarded prior to his assumption of office. Another N20.5bn was spent on recurrent expenditure during the same period. And, yes, they also spent N1.32bn on COVID-19 palliative, not N1.5bn, he insists, adding that he did not know the budget from which the palliative expense was taken! …
Billion… Billion… Billion… Heads swooned, and the professor’s head must have swooned too, for as the probing continued and he battled to maintain his balance on his seat, he fainted! And that was it. And then the fainted professor, on his very own feet, walked out of the venue and never returned. And a brutalized Warri Federal Constituency, starved of projects and development for 20 years, was presiding!
An hour later, it was the turn of the Honorable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio. It did not take much time before the Honorable Minister pointedly accused members of the National Assembly of being the principal beneficiaries of contracts awarded by the commission. An agitated member of the investigative committee, Honorable Goodhead Boma, challenged the minister to name the beneficiaries among the lawmakers and the Minister retorted: “Are you asking me who the beneficiaries are in the National Assembly? I just told you that we have records to show that most of the contracts in the NDDC are given to members of the National Assembly… It is you people now! Because if you look at your chairman…”
For whatever reason, Warri Federal Constituency, despite having been starved of projects and development by the commission for two decades, sought to stop the minister from continuing with his deafening revelations; but Hon Boma Goodhead, obviously representing a better fed constituency, was in the spirit and heatedly demanded to know what the benefits to members of the National Assembly from the NDDC are. The Minister, equally in the spirit, replied glibly: “That is why we have to change the modus operandi. You must not allow the two chairmen to hijack the budget every year. You are like me. I was a member like you. I did not know what was going on…”
Even in retrospect, one is still at a loss what pushed Warri Federal Constituency to it. With several bangs of the gavel, he began to protest: “Honourable minister, that’s okay, It’s okay..it’s okay!” He kept pleading desperately, like a wife who does not want her abusive husband exposed to public opprobrium, even as the minister and Honorable Goodhead engaged in heated debate… “Honourable member.. Honourable minister, it’s okay. That is okay… it’s okay… Honourable minister… Off your mic. Off the mic…” Warri Federal constituency, a constituency relegated, repressed, and treated with contempt in the affairs of the Commission, playing the obscurantist just when we had a minister who was ready to throw open the can of worms that is the NDDC for the world to see how we had been grossly shortchanged! When the drumbeats and the dance steps are not in tandem with the mood of the people, then for whom is the dancer dancing?
Anyhow, not unexpectedly, nothing came out of the much-publicized House of Representatives investigations into the financial rascality of the NDDC. But a determined presidency kept the forensic audit on track through the minister. So it was that on the 2nd day of September 2021 the report of the audit was received by the Honorable Minister for Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, on behalf of the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, Mohammadu Buhari.
Receiving the report, the Minister of Justice noted that the call for the audit by the people of the Niger Delta Region arose from the huge gaps between resources invested in the region vis-à-vis the huge gap in infrastructural, human, and economic development in the region. He made the following succinct points: –
- It is on record that between 2001 and 2019, the Federal Government has approved, which brings the total figure to the sum of approximately Six Trillion Naira given to the Niger Delta Development Commission.
- Consequently, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the engagement of a Lead Forensic Auditor, as well as 16 reputable Audit Firms to conduct the audit exercise.
- The President is delighted that the auditors have now completed this exercise and the Report is today being presented.
- Furthermore, the President is not oblivious of the interest generated by Stakeholders towards the forensic audit exercise and the agitation for the constitution of the Board of the NDDC. However, this Administration is determined to address challenges militating against the delivery of the mandate of the NDDC to the people of the Niger Delta Region.
- It is in the broader context of the foregoing developments that the President recently signed into Law the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) which has been a contentious issue over the years for successive Governments, to bring about the prudence and accountability in the Petroleum Sector and to give a sense of participation and ownership to the Host communities.
- The Report on the forensic audit of the NNDC and recommendations will therefore be critically analysed for necessary action and implementation. We owe it a duty to the people of the Niger Delta Region to improve their standard of living through the provision of adequate infrastructural and socio-economic development.
- The welfare and socio- economic inclusion of the Niger Delta Region is paramount to the development and security of the Region and by extension the Country. Funds spent on development activities should as a consequence promote political and socio-economic stability in the Region. Citizens affected by these development projects should also exhibit the ability to contribute to the continuous progress of their immediate and wider communities by engaging in constructive activities that will sustain and supports these development projects.
- It is evident that considerable resources have been channeled by the Federal Government to the development of the Niger Delta from 2001 to 2019. It is therefore important for the Federal Government and the public to be properly informed of what has been spent and how that has been spent. The essence of the forensic audit is to ensure probity and accountability in the use of public funds. It is against this background that the Federal Government will without hesitation strategically implement all aspects of the audit exercise that will promote probity and greater prosperity for the Niger Delta Region and Nigeria as whole.
- The Federal Government is particularly concerned with the colossal loss occasioned by uncompleted and unverified development projects in the Niger Delta Region, in spite of the huge resources made available to uplift the living standard of the citizens. We have on record over 13,777 projects, the execution of which is substantially compromised. The Federal Government is also concerned with the multitudes of Niger Delta Development Commission’s bank accounts amounting to 362 and lack of proper reconciliation of accounts.
- The Federal Government will in consequence apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate. This will include but not limited to initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilized for the public purposes for which they were meant for review of the laws to reposition and restructure the NDDC for the efficiency of better service delivery amongst others. In all these instances of actions, legal due processes will strictly be complied with.
- The President has directed that the forensic audit report be forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Justice for a legal review and relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of Government will be engaged in doing justice to the findings accordingly.
As is to be expected, some shadowy groups are already casting aspersions on the modus operandi and findings of the forensic audit exercise. One group, Niger Delta Justice Forum, in a September 7 open letter to the Minister of Justice, even contests the Six Trillion Naira that reportedly accrued to the NDDC over the period covered by the audit and claims instead that it was 2.4 trillion Naira only. They add also that many of the projects were not accessible to the audit team because they are hidden in interior creeks, etc. Short of an attempt to throw spanners in the works, what does it really matter whether it is 6 or 2.4 trillion in a context that amounts to outright brigandage? What is of concern to the people is what was done with whatever money was made available for developmental projects in the region. Where are the projects? If they exist, surely nobody need to worry about whatever the audit report says. All that anybody wrongly accused needs to do is to show commensurate value for money received. It is understandable that big, fat rats that have been smoked out by the audit will be embarrassed that the public will marvel at their size and species and as such they will try to pull a trick or two to save face as they scurry for cover. Let those of us commoners be mindful therefore of jumping to their defense on the basis of ethnic and other primordial sentiments lest we become double losers. Let us also be mindful not to be counted amongst the rash of usually outspoken Niger Delta radicals and activists from youths to nonagenarians whose loud silence now must distinguish them from the rest of us on whom they have feasted recklessly all these years. Let it not be said, as one trending social media post put it, that this one is “looting of the Niger Delta people, for the Niger Delta people, and by the Niger Delta people”. No, this one is looting by mindless criminals who all these years have represented themselves as fighting for our interests whilst all the while deepening and lining their pockets with our inheritance. It is a matter of the backwardness they have foisted on the region because of their selfishness, the hardship our people have had to suffer because of their insatiable appetite and mindless greed.
Meanwhile, a civil society organisation, the Media Initiative Against Injustice, Violence and Corruption, has invoked the Freedom of Information Act and asked the Attorney-General of and Minister of Justice to make the forensic audit report public. This is a welcome development. People of the Niger Delta need to know who their true enemies have been all these years.
WARRI PEOPLE 