From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
There is a brewing tension in the Niger Delta region as ex-militants and Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) are on a collision course over the appointment of a sole administrator for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by President Muhammadu Buhari
The IYC noted that while President Muhammadu Buhari has the prerogative to hire and fire, the decision to sack Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei-led Interim Management Committee (IMC) without setting up a substantive management board was defective, provocative and lacking in proper advise by aides and advisers of the president.
The IYC, in a statement issued, yesterday, by its national spokesman, Mr Ebilade Erekefe, said the decision to appoint Mr Effiong Okon Akwa as the sole administrator of the NDDC without the appointment of Executive Director Projects(EDP) and Executive Director of Finance and Administration(EDFA) in the commission, is a deliberate act of encouraging the re-looting of billions of naira recovered by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).
Ekerefe noted that the president’s decision is a confirmation that he is not up-to-date on the happenings in the Niger Delta region.
Regardless, a group of ex-militants, under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiative (LPCDI), said the appointment of Mr. Okon Akwa as NDDC’s sole administrator, is a round peg in a hole because of his wealth of experience which he would bring to bear at the commission bedevilled with all manners of maladministration and sleaze by previous administrations.
However, Transparency and Accountability Advancement Group has expressed disappointment over the appointment of an interim administrator when there is a governing board yet to be inaugurated.
Reacting to the appointment of Mr. Akwa, the group, in a statement by Ebi Arogbofa, national chairman, condemned “the continuation of this brazen behaviour of the Niger Delta Minister, Godswill Akpabio, in making illegal appointments of heads of the NDDC, despite sound counsel that it was not only unlawful, but disenfranchises the constituent states of the oil producing states to fair representation in the development agency.”
The group said it was strange that President Buhari “approved an illegal appointment to replace another illegal appointment, while rejecting appointment of “cronies in illegal capacities to manage the NDDC, under the guise that it is undergoing a forensic audit.”
The group advised the Presidency not to be used by those who have personal agenda in NDDC, while urging the government to “constitute the Governing Board of the NDDC in line with the Commission’s law.”
It said by delaying inauguration of the NDDC Governing Board, the government was “toying with not just the harmony of the Niger Delta states and its many constituent tribes who are not represented at the helm of the NDDC, but, also, with the integrity of the forensic audit.”