A prominent lawyer, Professor Yusuf Dankofa has called on the Senate to ignore what he described as the campaign of calumny against Lauretta Onochie who was recently nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Chairman of the NDDC.
In a letter dated 28th December 2022 Dankofa, a Professor of Law, kicked against what he called falsehoods by merchants of distortions kicking against the appointment of Lauretta Onochie.
The letter addressed to the Senate President was titled: “NOMINATION OF LAURETTA ONOCHIE IS IN TANDEM WITH THE NIGER DELTA DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION (ESTABLISHMENT) ACT OF 2000”.
In the letter, the lawyer said , “We are Legal Practitioners with interests in Human Rights and Public Interest Litigations based in the above address and it has become imperative to lend our voice to stop the ongoing campaign of calumny and hatred against Lauretta Onochie who was recently nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Chairman of the NDDC.
“We have watched with amusement how purveyors of falsehoods and merchants of distortions have been busy forwarding baseless and unfounded petitions against the nomination of this hapless woman of substance and it will be in the overall interests of public good to say emphatically that their grounds of resentment and opposition are without proper legal foundation.
“One of the arguments is that Lauretta is not from the oil production part of Delta State, despite the fact that Delta State is an oil producing state and as such her nomination negates the terms and spirits of the NDDC Act.
“To resolve this logjam, we herein refer you sir to part 2 of the said Act which provides for members of the Board and their appointment. Section 2 subsection 1 is very explicit and manifestly unambiguous. It said that:
“There is hereby established for the commission, a governing board, which shall consist of a chairman, one person who shall be an indigence of an oil producing area to represent each of the member states.”
The letter further said “From the foregoing, it is very clear that a nominee for the position of the chairman need not even come from an oil producing area, the said provision having already laid down the conditions that it is the other members of the board that must come from oil producing area.
“We therefore submit with the greatest respect that no law or statute can invalidate the nomination of Lauretta Onochie as there is none whatsoever.
“Section 12 Subsection 1 of the same act is also conjunctive of the earlier quoted Section 2. It also provides:
“There shall be for the commission, a Managing Director and two Executive Directors who shall be indigenes of oil producing areas starting with the members of the commission with the highest production quantum of oil and shall rotate amongst member states in the order of production.
“The import of the above is that the appointment of the Managing Director, the Executive Directors and other Board Members are the only ones subjected and predicated on the oil producing indigeneity and not the appointment of Lauretta Onochie. It is therefore an aberration and a misguided understanding of the law for any group to canvass that the nomination of Lauretta Onochie is ultra vires the NDDC Act.
“Sir, it has also come to our notice that despite the clear provisions of the said NDDC Act, (sections 2(1) and 21(1) which does not robb Lauretta Onochie of the right to be nominated, the mischief makers further hinged their porous arguments on an amorphous amendment of the said act on the issue of members of its board which has not yet been given any stamp of approval by the Nigerian Legislature. They tried to justify their position that the NDDC Act has been amended to provide that only persons from oil producing areas can be appointed as Board Members, the Chairman inclusive. We herein argue that, this is a wrong position and negative interpretation of the Act. What we have is an impending or a proposed amendment which is not the same as an amendment done by the due process of law and therefore such shall suffer the fate that befalls Bills that has not become an Act of our National Assembly as you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand.
“For the records, the only amendment to the NDDC Act relates to funds and this was the 2017 amendment. From the year 2017, the gas producing companies and all the associated gas companies will be contributing mandatorily to the NDDC. There was never any amendment relating to the Board Members beyond what has been provided for in the principal legislation.
“It is upon the above premise that we beseech this respected and distinguished Senate not to allow petitions like this that stands on nothing to sway its decisions because allowing this is to create an avenue where politically desperate people will continue to irritate, dehumanize and consistently sabotage government efforts at bringing credible, visionary and transformational people on board to assist her in driving its change agenda.”
