By Sampson Boroh
The Coalition of Niger Deltans for Justice & Development (CONDJUD) has faulted as ‘premature and in bad faith’ the calls for the sack of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) and the Forensic Investigation Audit () team of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) headed by Dr Joy Nuinieh and Cairo Ojougboh respectively.
According to the group, the assignment of cleaning up the augean stable of the NDDC has become necessary in the last 20 years of its inception and must be completed, saying audit of the interventionist agency was one of the best things President Muhammadu Buhari has done for the region
The Coalition of Niger Deltans for Justice & Development (CONDJUD), in a statement issued via email and signed by its President, Comrade Ebiakpo J. Barle, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ignore any calls for the sack of neither the Interim Management Committee (IMC) or the Forensic Investigation Audit () team of the Niger Delta Development Commission(NDDC).
According to the group, “Both the IMC and Forensic Investigation Audit assignments must be continued and completed because the new board to be appointed by Mr President is a fresh entity and needs a clean slate to start its work. We consider the recent call by a body of so called Ijaw professionals to sack the IMC and the FIA is being done in bad faith.
“ It is an attempt to short circuit the work of the Forensic Investigation Audit and to ensure its report does not reveal and expose the truth behind the NDDC lost billions which is the aim of the exercise.
“Mr President’s intention and action is geared at correcting the wrong doings that has continued to fester in that place and becoming a routine. The need for a thorough clean up of the present mess at the NDDC cannot be overemphasized. The Niger Delta people have in the last 20 years suffered untold hardship due to deprivation resulting from wanton mismanagement of funds at the NDDC.”
The group while applauding President Buhari’s directive, noted that the audit would bring about lasting sanity to the operation of the commission.
“And to forestall a repeat of similar recklessness by future administrators of NDDC there is every need to complete the present assignment going on at the NDDC. This is to ensure that such sordid experience does not play out again at the NDDC. Therefore the only thing to do now is what is being done there right now and it is in the right direction.
“The President of Nigeria who has the power to appoint the NDDC Board of Management we believe also has the power to intervene in NDDC affairs to straighten up things if he finds out that things are not the way they should be there in that commission.
“ If in the past Interim Management Committees have been set to manage the NDDC affairs pending the constitution of the statutory Board and no one complained or objected to it what is illegal about what President Buhari has done.
“More so in this case its an effort to salvage the people of the Niger Delta who bear the burden and trauma of the 20 years mismanagement of affairs at the commission. Whichever way one looks at the setting up of IMC and FIA in this period is the best thing that has happened to NDDC. We believe that after this exercise once properly concluded the life style at the NDDC will change for the good and development in the region will be accelerated.”
