NDDC: Beyond The Dissolution (11)

The dissolution of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is capable of dominating public discourse for another week if not months. Clearly, the sacking of the board did not come as a surprise to everyone. Giving the years of poor performance, the dissolution was long expected.

The recent internal crisis that resulted in the dissolution of the board was not the first of such potentially destructive developments at the NDDC. Reports of corrupt practices; contract racketeering as well as power struggle and misappropriation are not new in NDDC. Indeed, these have come to form the hallmark of  activities in the commission.

The truth lies in the fact that the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta, at least 95 percent of them, have not felt the presence of the NDDC after more than a decade of its existence. Life in the average Niger Delta Community is still very difficult. With no access, no amenities and no secure economic source, they have become poorer than before.

That is why the Federal Government will need to read the heartbeat of the people as it tries to tackle challenges facing the NDDC. Government should now look beyond political considerations and patronages and re-invent the NDDC. The NDDC the people need is not the one that is extremely sophisticated, but one that can see the need for a road, bridge or water and provide same.

The NDDC needed by the rural Niger Delta is not that elistist board that tends to measure its success by the refuse-bins they provide for city dwellers, rather than reaching and rescuing thousands of indigent people and communities the commission is intended for. The NDDC need is not another platform for politicians and political jobbers to jostle for power and money.

It is rather sad that over the years operators of the NDDC fail to feel the heart cry of the under – privileged Niger Delta as they mis-apply funds of the commission in the cities. Worse still, none of the supervising bodies did anything to make the commission achieve purpose. Yet, the commission works with the Governor’s Committee, the Senate Committee on NDDC, the House Committee and the Presidential Monitoring Committee.

Also un-imaginable is the failure to fund the commission as stipulated. Indeed this became the biggest excuse for the ineptitude of the commission. It is also an excuse for not taking up the desired interventionist projects. But everyone knows that any interventionist project no matter how big can be taken in phases to achieve the required objective over time.

Even as many people did not see the reason for all the money and time spent in developing a development Master Plan for the region overseas, the commissioning of that plan ought to have transformed the face of the Niger Delta challenge by now. But nothing like that.

Yet, people appointed into the board come out very rich. In fact, there was a time one of the leaders of the commission was said to have burnt hundreds of millions of Naira with a view to retaining his office. How that matter was handled after the officer was sacked is still a mystery.

Things have turned out like this because it appears the government that created the commission didn’t appear to expect much from the commission. Worse still, it used appointment into the board as political patronage. Indeed, taking NDDC projects to other states of the federation excellently demonstrated the mockery that NDDC was.

The present government must do everything on its powers to turn the situation around. It must prone the bureaucracy and appoints a result-oriented person to run the commission and not a politician whose view of sharing resources, balancing interests and courting new allies would not give the space to do deliberate intervention in the Niger Delta.

As a liaison of the people, we are truly troubled that the people of the Niger Delta have not been served in spite of all the efforts made in that direction. The Niger Delta Basin Development Authority, OMPADEC, NDDC, the Ministry of Niger Delta and the post-militancy efforts ought to have made some difference by now.

That is why the current effort of re-positioning the NDDC must not open the way to mere lip-service again. Or serve to beg the issues. The Niger Delta must change and it begins with good and deliberate efforts of the government to make things happen there.