The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, has invited President
Muhammadu Buhari to commission the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe Road in
Bayelsa State. The road, built in conjunction with the Shell Petroleum
Development Company, SPDC, creates a land link to the ancient city of
Nembe for the first time.
The Commission’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Mr. Charles Odili
disclosed this in Abuja after delivering the NDDC management’s
invitation to Mr. President through the Minister for Niger Delta
Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Odili noted that the road project, which costs N24 billion, cutting
through swampy terrain with spurs to 14 other communities, needed 10
bridges and 99 culverts. “To conquer the swampy terrain. The
construction involved digging out four metres of clay soil and sand
filling it to provide a base for the road,” he observed.
Significantly, he said, “the road has cut the journey time to Yenagoa,
the Bayelsa State capital, from three hours to one and a half hours.”
Odili said the joy of the communities served by the road was
unspeakable, noting: “This project is not the only flagship of
intervention in the Niger Delta, it is also a model of the development
partnership between the Commission and international oil companies in
the region.”
Odili also disclosed that scholars of the Commission who are facing
hardships abroad because of the non-remittance of their fees and
stipends would be paid by the end of the week, following the order of
President Buhari.
He said the delay in the remittance of the fees was caused by the sudden
death of Chief Ibanga Etang, the then Acting Executive Director, Finance
and Administration, EDFA, of the Commission in May.
Odili stated: “Under the Commission’s finance protocol, only the
Executive Director (Finance) and the Executive Director (Projects) can
sign for the release of funds from the Commission’s domiciliary accounts
with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
“With the death of Chief Etang, the remittance has to await the
appointment of a new EDFA.”
Odili said further: “Senator Akpabio, the Honourable Minister, said
President Buhari who has been briefed on the protest by students at the
Nigerian High Commission in London, has ordered that all stops be pulled
to pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new EDFA to be
appointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid.”
On the list of NDDC contracts handled by members of the National
Assembly, Odili said, the one submitted by Senator Akpabio was not
compiled by the minister but came from the files in the Commission.
The NDDC spokesperson said the list submitted to the National Assembly
was actually compiled by the then management of the Commission in 2018.
He observed that there was another set of lists for emergency project
contracts awarded in 2017 and 2019 but these were not submitted to the
National Assembly.
Odili affirmed: “The Interim Management Committee, IMC, of the
Commission stands by the list, which came from files already in the
possession of the forensic auditors. It is not an Akpabio list but the
NDDC’s list. The list is part of the volume of 8,000 documents already
handed over to the forensic auditors.”
The NDDC Corporate Affairs Director also said that prominent indigenes
of the Niger Delta whose names were on the list should not panic as the
Commission knew that people used the names of prominent persons in the
region to secure contracts, adding that the ongoing forensic audit would
unearth those behind the contracts.
The spokesperson said the intention of the list was to expose committee
chairmen in the National Assembly who used fronts to collect contracts
from the Commission, some of which were never executed.
Odili added that the list did not include the unique case of 250
contracts which were signed for and collected in one day by one person
ostensibly for members of the National Assembly.
On the forensic audit exercise, he said that it was on course and the
Commission had positioned 185 media to support specialists to identify
the sites of every project captured in its books for verification by the
forensic auditors.
Odili advised members of the public to discountenance the “avalanche of
falsehood being orchestrated by mischief makers,” regretting that “more
insinuations and accusations may be thrown into the public space by
those opposed to the IMC.”