The Niger Delta Coalition For Unity And Progress has reacted to the statement credited to the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki, which claimed that APC National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole selected the NDDC Board as a tissue of lies. In a press statement signed by its National Coordinator, Brakemi Akokari and released in Yenagoa today, December 23 2019, the group said the governor’s statement was misleading and injurious to the reputations of the people on the board, which President Buhari has promised to recompose and inaugurate after the NDDC audit is completed.
The press statement stated as follows: “Our attention has been drawn to statements credited to Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and published in newspapers and online media on Sunday December 22, 2019, to the effect that the new board of the NDDC, which was approved by the Senate on November 5, 2019 was singlehandedly selected by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole without the knowledge of President Muhammadu Buhari. This is absolutely untrue as the facts of the matter are very clear in the public domain, and which we will painstakingly restate here for the avoidance of doubt.”
“The governor’s statement which was contained in a press statement by his media aide, one Crusoe Osagie, makes the dubious and unfounded claims that, “…the President was away from the country and Comrade Oshiomhole got top officials at the presidency to approve the composition of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), made up of his cronies apparently in violation of the existing rules. Uppermost on Comrade Oshiomhole’s mind was his desire to annex the NDDC and make it a slush fund from where he expected to finance the political tension in Edo State towards possibly seizing control of the Edo State Government from Governor Obaseki. He did not care whether the rules were followed nor the integrity of the people being appointed. All he wanted was to achieve his aim and keep Edo State under his stranglehold as the new godfather.”’
“While we appreciate the problems Governor Obaseki has with Oshiomhole, who was his predecessor, we believe that the governor will be taking this too far by giving the impression that all the members of the board, which President Buhari has kept on hold to be recomposed and inaugurated in due course, have been injudiciously selected with an agenda to loot the NDDC for Oshiomhole’s personal benefit. If that was how Obaseki got Oshiomhole’s endorsement in his first term, then it tells a lot of the kind of person he is… However, to take that personal tarbrush and impugn the reputations of the credible and high-achieving members of that board who have nothing to do with Edo State politics and who were painstakingly headhunted to reposition the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is irresponsible and fraudulent. It is important to note that the president did not discard the board approved by the senate but stated clearly in the statement made by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr Femi Adesina, that the board will be ‘recomposed and inaugurated’ after the forensic audit is completed. That should be clear to anyone that the president’s intention is not for a fresh nomination and screening of a new board, yet in his attempt to discredit Oshiomhole, Obaseki lied, in a haste to discredit the board and a process that Nigerians all over have hailed as transparent and credible. It is interesting also that he has gone further to impute motives not expressly stated by President Buhari’s media aide in announcing the president’s decision on the NDDC.”
“For the avoidance of doubt, even the announcement of the board nominees, which was first made on August 27 and then in October when the president sent his letter personally signed by him containing the list of the nominees to the senate indicates clearly that President Buhari approved the composition of the board. First, the board list was made public in August and later the President in his letter dated October 18th 2019 wrote to the Senate President to confirm the nominees. This process was followed and completed on November 5th 2019 when the senate confirmed 15 out of the 16 nominees. Except the Edo State governor is expressly saying that Oshiomhole forged the signature of President Buhari on the document sent to the senate or that the president was unaware of the letter he signed, there can be no greater falsehood, especially when the nominees were public knowledge for about two months before they were screened and confirmed by the senate.”
According to the group, ‘We are bothered at the politicization of the appointment of board nominees into the NDDC and how it is been turned into a proxy war of Edo State politics against the very fact of the process that produced that board. Interestingly, these facts, which are well documented in the media, have neither been repudiated nor denied by the principal actors themselves. While many of such reports have been published during the recent saga of the delay in inaugurating the board, the report of The Nation newspaper of Saturday December 21, 2019, bears recalling. Under the headline ‘NDDC: How Akpabio moved against Oshiomhole, Sylva, Omo-Agege’, the report said, “The Senate-approved board whose members had been waiting to be inaugurated by the President, was constituted with inputs from Niger Delta leaders, including the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole; the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege; former Bayelsa State governor, Niger Delta minister Senator Godswill Akpabio and Chief Timipre Sylva, according to The Nation investigation. As earlier reported by this paper, some Presidency officials had told Senator Omo-Agege, who is said to be very close to the Villa, that President Buhari needed upright and competent people to run the affairs of the NDDC because he believed that the huge sums hitherto pumped into the commission had not been well utilised by its managers . . . Senator Omo-Agege, however, felt that it would not be fair for him to nominate the commission’s members without inputs from other Niger Delta leaders. He therefore contacted Oshiomhole, Sylva, Akpabio and some other Niger Delta leaders who nominated a name each.”’
“What is clear therefore is that the board had broad representation and was the product of consensus; no one person, certainly not Oshiomhole, could have selected the members without the knowledge of the President and for a purpose as nefarious as Governor Obaseki has painted.
“Let it be known to Obaseki that he has embarked on a mission that bodes no good for the peaceful coexistence of our peoples in the Niger Delta. We want to advise Governor Obaseki and indeed all those who have issues to grind in Edo State and elsewhere in the region to stick to their local politics and stop spinning convenient tales on the back of the leadership issues in the NDDC.”
