The drama surrounding the infamous Niger Delta Development Commission unfolds daily as the latest reports suggest that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, may have pushed for the removal of Joy Nunieh as the acting managing director of the interim management committee.
This move by the minister was reported to have been occasioned by the rancorous relationship between both men fraught with mutual suspicion and power play who should otherwise have been working hand in hand.
President Muhammadu Buhari had replaced Joy Nunieh as acting managing director of the NDDC with a professor of medicine, Kemebradikumo Pondei until the completion of a planned forensic audit of the agency.
Buhari also expanded the interim management committee to include a former Vice President of African Development Bank, Cecilia Akintomide, and Caroline Nagbo as members in addition to Cairo Ojougboh and Ibanga Etang who remain acting director (projects) and the acting director (finance and administration) respectively.
The new Acting Managing Director, K.D Pondei, is a Professor of Medicine at the Niger Delta University, and former Provost, College of Health Sciences of the institution.
Incorruptible Nunieh?
While Nunieh refuses to comment on the events, another report suggested Akpabio fought Nunieh because of her ‘principled and uncompromising’ position on the affairs of the NDDC.
Though Nunieh is a long-time political ally to President Buhari, it is believed that Akpabio may have contributed to her appointment in the NDDC.
A report suggests that Nunieh stayed away from the meeting with the audit firm because she was insisting that the World Bank and the National Financial Intelligence Unit should be involved to supervise the forensic audit since the firm handling it was handpicked by the minister.
Following an order that an audit of the NDDC accounts be conducted last year, Buhari sent nominees for board members to the senate but over one month after the confirmation of the nominees led by Pius Odubu, the president abandoned them insisting that a new board be composed after the interim management committee created by Godswill Akpabio completes its audit.
These insinuations against the minister contradict his revelation that that the NDDC was bedeviled by corruption, so much so that the commission was being seen as an automated teller machine (ATM). Akpabio later made a shocking revelation that the NDDC ‘abandoned’ $70 million in a bank for 13 years, while hundreds of its projects remain abandoned and uncompleted across the cerate producing states, partly due to non-release of funds.
Is Buhari committed to N’Delta development or Playing Politics?
As indicated in many quarters, the changing of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Interim Management Committee (IMC) was seen as a proof of President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to developing the oil-rich region.
A Niger Delta activist, George Tamuno, disclosed this on Wednesday, in a statement made available to reporters in Warri.
In the statement he commended the appointment of Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei as the new Acting Managing Director of the IMC, he emphasized that the forensic audit ordered by the president will be actualized by the new team headed by Pondei.
Tamuno, while appreciating the President for the appointment, charged Niger Deltans to support the new NDDC Acting MD.
He further noted that President Buhari and Senator Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, have continued to put the development of the region into consideration. He said…
“His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari has again proven to the people of Niger Delta that he is committed to the development of the oil rich region, by appointing Professor Kemebradikumo Daniel Pondei as the new Acting Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC. Because the forensic audit is very important to Mr. President and Senator Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.
“The appointment of Professor Pondei as the new Acting Managing Director of Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission was timely to boost the confidence of Niger Deltans and also to actualize the President’s ordered forensic audit of the NDDC”.
Haven fought the lawmakers who have refused to recognize an interim board he composed and now seemly orchestrating the removal of his once cherished Acting Managing Director, begs the question, what is the minister of Niger Delta Affairs doing with the NDDC?
