Buhari Must Not Accept Gov. Wike’s Advice On NDDC - Niger Delta Group

A group based in Nigeria’s oil rich region, Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy (VATLAD) has faulted Governor Nyesom Wike’s recent suggestion on how President Muhammadu Buhari can positively re-position the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), claiming that the Rivers Governor’s lamentation on what have become of the interventionist agency has nothing to do with a sincere desire for the greatest good and benefits of the Niger Delta people.

The VATLAD National President Engr Igbini Odafe Emmanuel, in a statement forwarded to AllNews on Thursday, asserted that the demand by Wike for the NDDC governing Board to seek and obtain permission of Niger Delta governors before coming to execute projects in their States “amounts to placing the State Governors above the President of Nigeria and the Federal Government,” a situation, he said, can lead to anarchy.

“It is also not correct for Governor Wike to say that by the spirit and letters of the NDDC Act, State Governors of NDDC are members of the Governing Board of the Commission. The Governors are not part and will not be allowed to be; they are only to play advisory role as rightly captured in section 11 of the NDDC Act which states: “There is hereby established for the Commission, A Niger-Delta Development Advisory Committee (in this Act referred to as "the Advisory Committee") which shall consist of- (a) the Governor of the member States of the Commission; and (b) two other persons as may be determined, from time to time, by the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. (2) The Advisory Committee shall be charged with the responsibility of advising the Board and monitoring the activities of the Commission, with a view to achieving the objective of the Commission”.

“Can governors be members of the Governing Board of NDDC and simultaneously made to advise the same Board? This is how last year, governor Wike and his colleagues of the oil-producing States deliberately misled President Buhari to appoint them into and constitute the Advisory Committee of NDDC under an illegal Interim Management Committee (IMC) that has now become a huge disaster and embarrassment to President Buhari. By the spirit and letter of NDDC Act, there must first be the inauguration of Senate’s duly confirmed members of Governing Board of NDDC before an Advisory Committee and other Committees of the NDDC can be constituted and inaugurated, as nobody erects a building without first constructing a firm foundation. Nothing can stand that is place on nothing!” read part of the statement.

On the way out of the corruption scandals rocking the NDDC, VATLAD urged Buhari to allow the confirmed members of the NDDC Governing Board to resume duty immediately, and for them to report directly only to him same way the Service Chiefs report directly to him, stressing that Sections 3(2), 7(3), 9(2) and 19, particularly section 7(3) of the NDDC Act make it mandatory for the Governing Board of NDDC to report directly only to whoever is the incumbent President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.

While disagreeing with the suggestion for NDDC governing Board to seek and obtain permission of the governors to enter and execute projects in the States, the group asked Niger Delta governors to “concentrate on delivering good governance to our people and transparently account for the billions of naira they collect on our behalf on monthly basis”.

It wondered “how many governors of the oil producing States can boast of performing better than even this poorly performed NDDC” and urged “Governor Wike to compel his colleagues (governors) to showcase their achievements and publicly publish details of their incomes and expenditures for forensic auditing”.