The present constitution of membership of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Board has continued to attract condemnation from within and outside the Niger Delta region.
This latest one came from King Leslie N. Eke, when he spoke Monday in an interview with newsmen at his palace in Woji in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area.
King Eke, who is also the Eze Oha Evo III of Evo Kingdom stated that the membership of the NDDC Board was not in the best interest of the region.
He said it short-changed the people of the area as non-Niger Deltans were fused in the system.”
According to the Eze Woji/Nyerisi Eli Woji, the NDDC was an interventionist commission for Niger Delta people and expressed regrets that concerned authorities are drifting from the core mandate of the agency.
The Eze Gbakagbaka, who doubles as the general secretary, Association of Niger Delta Monarchs of Nigeria, further said the people were never given any position or contracts in the North East Commission and added that the right thing must be done.
He expressed the view that politics or any form of National sharing formula should not be extended to the commission since it was specially penciled for a particular region for the aim of development of the area.
The traditional ruler, who went down memory lane stressed that the agency and its authorities should be bothered with providing the oil-rich zone with all the basic amenities and not inclusion of non-Deltans into the system.
“What the commission and its authorities should deliberate on should be how to alleviate the plight of the region and not to pile up the board with non-Niger Delta people” he said.
On the way forward, he called on the Federal Government to revisit the new board appointment and do the needful in the interest of justice and equity.
It would be recalled that the latest constitution of membership of the NDDC Board had non-Niger Delta people as members, which had raised high level of agitation within and outside the oil-rich zone of the country, a development which pundits argued contravenes some sections of the law that established the commission.