The Niger Delta Renaissance Coalition has said the public hearing by the Senate Adhoc Committee investigating alleged fraud in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has exposed the financial recklessness at the Commission supervised by the Niger Delta Ministry.

The group, in a press release by Comrade Godknows Sotonye, its national coordinator, said the revelations at the public hearing have more than vindicated its position that all is not well at the commission.

According to it, evidence from the public hearing have shown that the NDDC has been run like a private estate under a voodoo oath of secrecy.

The group said the testimony of the former Acting Managing Director of the first IMC, Mrs Joy Nunieh, to the effect that some people sought to have her swear to an oath of loyalty and secrecy was “damning and fits into what staff of the Commission have been complaining about.”

It said the former acting MD of the NDDC confirmed how the commission ran, as she revealed:  “Nobody makes payments in NDDC without Godswill Akpabio’s consent. When we first came to the NDDC after the inauguration we were in the car, he told me, Madam MD, if you don’t do what I said, the same pen I used in signing your letter, that is the same pen I will use in removing you.”

The Niger Delta Renaissance Coalition said Nunieh exposed the plot to implicate Senator Peter Nwaoboshi who is the Chairman of Senate Committee on NDDC and that of his House counterpart, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo for their resistance to the idea of Interim Management Committee at that time.

Related News

According to it, Numieh said she was asked to “draft a letter on my letterhead implicating Senator Peter Nwaoboshi for collecting contracts in NDDC. I told him that I am not aware of that and will not do that, I am a lawyer and he who alleges should prove. He said Senator Nwaoboshi is giving us trouble and, besides, he didn’t recognise the IMC. I said I will not do that letter. He said I was ungrateful since I refused to do that letter.”

The group said: “We are not surprised at the revelations at the public hearing, which confirms our initial fears. So far, whistleblowers have detailed payments of over N81 billion made by the IMC under the supervision of Akpabio detailing frivolous payments. Among other expenditures made in the last eight months, as gleaned from the account statements with the Committee as announced by Senator Adetunmbi are: N1.12 billion for publicity, N1.3 billion for Community relations, and N475 million, which the IMC said was used to buy hand sanitizer and face masks for the police.”

While commending the Senate Committee for its determination to unearth the happenings at the NDDC, the group said:  “It should go further to make recommendations that will restore the law and due process at the NDDC.”

The group insists that the “IMC is illegal and does not follow the Act.The IMC must be disbanded immediately because, as an illegal contraption, it serves no functional purpose in the administration of the NDDC. Rather, it has been exposed as a conduit for stealing the lean resources of the NDDC.”

It demanded an authentic forensic audit “by a reputable independent auditor, creditably and independently, just as the NNPC audit was done by Price Waterhouse a few years back while the legitimate Board and management was still in place. The board and management of the NNPC were not set aside for an IMC in order to do the audit.”

The Niger Delta group called on President Muhammadu Buhari “to put a stop to the ongoing corruption at the NDDC under the smokescreen of the forensic audit by disbanding the IMC and inaugurating a proper Governing Board to restore probity at the Commission.”