By Caleb Tamunosaki
The President of the Ijaw National Congress, INC, Professor Benjamin Okaba, has said that the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is being run like a personal estate of a cabal to the detriment of the peace and development of the Niger Delta.
He stated that such act is not only provocative but also indecent.
He said that the Ijaw National Congress has initiated legal actions to challenge the unacceptable rape of the destinies of the deprived people
Okaba, made statement on Tuesday, at an event to mark the 50th birthday and the official launch of the Boy Child Project by the Boyloaf Foundation of the former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), Ebikabowei Victor-Ben alias ‘General’ Boyloaf who turned 50 in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
“The NDDC is being run like the personal estate of a cabal to the detriment of the peace and development of the Niger Delta. This is not only provocative but also indecent. The INC has initiated legal procedures to challenge this naked rape of our collective destinies.
“Thankfully, the recent order of the Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa ordering the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to desist from subsuming the NDDC under the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, is a welcome development.
“It is in the direction of discontinuing the hijacking of the commission by individuals for their selfish interest, unbridled personal aggrandizement and advancement of their political relevance.”
Also, speaking, INC President, urged the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and Minister of the Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, to obey the recent Court order stopping the government from infusing NNDC under Akpabio’s Ministry.
It would be recalled that the Highh court presided over by Justice Isa Dashen granted a perpetual injunction restraining the AGF and Minister of Justice from further constituting an interim body or sole administratorship board to run the affairs of the NDDC.
Okaba requested Malami and Akpabio to rather persuade President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint and inaugurate a substantive board for the NDDC without further delay
“We implore the concerned Ministers (Malami and Akpabio), to obey the directive of the court and other legal pronouncements, and also impress it upon the President to immediately put a substantive board in place for the NDDC.
“The illegality is not helping the interventionist agency created to tackle developmental challenges ravaging the region. Mr Akpabio, who was once quoted as saying that ‘the appointment of the sole administrator to man the NDDC was backed by court order’, should display the necessary integrity and due diligence to reverse his earlier action now that the same legal institution has ordered otherwise.”
According to the President of INC, it is regrettable that the President and his two Ministers, have failed to fulfil their promises to constitute a new board for the Commission after the conclusion of the forensic audit and formal submission of the report.
He stated that it’s very unfortunate that the NDDC since 2015 had been run by an interim management committees and sole administrators, as against the law establishing the interventionist agency.
