Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the chairman of the house of representatives committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has announced his resignation as the chairman of the house panel probing allegations of financial impropriety in the NDDC.
Last week, Kemebradikumo Pondei, acting managing director of the NDDC, walked out on the committee after alleging that Tunji-Ojo and Peter Nwaoboshi, his counterpart at the senate, padded the 2019 budget of the agency.
Pondei stormed out at the meeting of the house committee on NDDC last Thursday, after insisting that Tunji-Ojo, its chairman, would not preside.
He said Tunji-Ojo had been fingered in the alleged fraud at the NDDC and so, cannot sit over the same matter in which he is an accused.
Pondei’s remarks angered members of the committee who issued an arrest warrant against the NDDC acting MD and other members of the interim management committee.
Tunji-Ojo, it was alleged, won a road contract awarded by the previous management of the NDDC.
The lawmaker however denied the allegation and challenged anyone with any contrary proof to make them public. He described the allegations against him as spurious.
“I am the Chairman of the House Committee on NDDC in the House of Representatives and I say without equivocation that I do not have any contract whatsoever at the commission,” he said.
The NDDC has been embroiled in countless controversies over the last few weeks with allegations of corruption against senior officials of the Commission and the minister of Niger Delta affairs and former governor of Akwa Ibom state- Godswill Akpabio.
The former acting MD of the agency- Joi Nunieh- was last week at the center of another controversy following attempts to arrest her by police personnel who she alleged did not have a warrant for her arrest.
It took the intervention of the Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike to rescue the former MD from what many commentators tagged a “police siege.”
