President Muhammadu Buhari’s latest moves aimed at repositioning the NDDC fall “severely short of expectation.”
This assertion was made by a civil society group Social Action Nigeria in a statement signed by its program manager, Botti Isaac on Monday.
According to Social Action, “The sack, over the weekend of the Acting Managing Director of the Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei by the President, Muhammadu Buhari, and replacement by a management member of the commission, the Finance and Administration’s Executive Director, falls severely short of the expectations and yearnings of the long-suffering people of the Niger Delta region, who has longed to see a genuine and effective transformation of the Interventionist Agency from its present moribund state brought about by years of systemic corruption and impunity.”
The group said NDDC shortly after its establishment, came under crippling influences that were both political and parochial and did not take long before it lost focus and derailed completely from its mandates as outlined in both its Masterplan as well as its enabling Act.
“The President’s latest action in the regard of the Commission of merely replacing one Operative of the Commission with another, from same Commission, does not signal any serious intention or action at addressing fundamental problems plaguing the Commission as the action was merely tantamount to replacing a wine with similar, in the same wineskin,” the statement said.
According to the Head of Social Action Nigeria, Vivian Bellonwu-Okafor, “besides some of the very crucial dissections and operations that need to be carried out on NDDC, its leadership position process should be advertised and made to follow a rigorous selection and recruitment process in line with standard best-practices.
“This will go a long way to ensure that only persons not only deem qualified by education or experience as it were but more importantly with the right integrity pedigree and vision, gets recruited into the position”.
Additionally, Bellonwu-Okafor stated that “the tenure of such official needs also be secure to help insulate it from political and ancillary influences and pressures to give him/her the necessary enablement and impetus to act in the best interest of the teeming masses of the region, as against that of a politician, as presently obtains”.
While expressing disappointment at the lack of action on the Senate’s Report from its investigative hearing on the NDDC and calling for its implementation, she pointed out that the on-going forensic report on the Commission need be pursued and carried out with untainted transparency, commitment, and sincerity of purpose as it was a process through which the downs of the Commission could be systematically identified and remedied towards re-positioning the Commission to its mandate and goals.
