A Niger Delta group, Niger Delta Accountability and Development Coalition, has again called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to obey the law establishing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

In a statement by Comrade Johnson Epia, National Coordinator, the group said President Buhari erred by constituting an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to run the affairs of the NDDC when the law establishing the commission should not recognise this.

It condemned the National Assembly for considering and passing the budget prepared by the NDDC IMC, knowing that the set up is illegal.

The Niger Delta group said: “the Senate erred ab initio by succumbing to pressure to allow the illegal IMC to submit the NDDC budget proposal to it, which it also approved, contrary to its earlier constitutionally justified decision not to recognise and/or relate with such Interim Management Committee, having screened and confirmed nominees for the Governing Board of the NDDC, as prescribed by the NDDC Act, 2000, as amended.”

The statement said the NDDC Act does not recognise any form of Interim Management Committee or any other form of Management “except as strictly prescribed in the NDDC Act, 2000, as amended, particularly sections 2 and 10 of the Act, which are the Governing Board and Management Committee and whose members must be nominated to the Senate for screening and confirmation by the President of Nigeria.”

It said the NDDC Act provides for the president to “nominate a chairman, managing director, two executive directors and one person who shall be an indigene of an oil producing area to represent each of the following member states, that is: Abia, Akwa-lbom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers states, and three persons to represent each of the non-oil mineral producing geo-political zones.

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“Other members are: a representative of oil producing companies in the Niger-Delta nominated by the oil producing companies; one person to represent the Federal Ministry of Finance; and one person to represent Federal Ministry of Environment. By the provisions of the NDDC Act, they shall be appointed for a fixed term of four years in the first instance subject to the confirmation of the Senate.”

The group faulted the Senate for recognising or relating with any Interim Management Committee (IMC)  when it had confirmed the NDDC Governing Board earlier nominated by President Buhari.

While it welcomes forensic audit in the NDDC, the group said mandating the IMC to supervise this is “not only faulty but appears a carefully planned agenda to ridicule President Buhari and the National Assembly.”

The group accused the Minister of the Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, of  latching onto the “agitation for a forensic audit to create an IMC contraption that serves no particular purpose to the people of the region.”

It said the audit does not needs the supervision of the management, “let alone an illegal management committee, else it loses its independence and credibility,” adding: “No serious audit requires the management of the place to supervise it, except, of course, it is an audit with predetermined boundaries. The IMC is therefore no more than an interloper in the affairs of the NDDC, which is why Civil Society Organisations have been consistent in demanding that the NDDC be run by the Governing Board.”

The group called on President Buhari to scrap the IMC and inaugurate the Governing Board in line with the law.

“Now that President Buhari is reported to be reviewing all appointments and some major decisions taken under him, which may not be to his knowledge or which he was misled to approve, the suspended inauguration of the Governing Board of NDDC should be top on the list. We, therefore, call on President Buhari to scrap the IMC and comply with the NDDC Act by inaugurating the Governing Board for the NDDC.”