Release Orosanya Report Now

It needs not be restated here that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a child of circumstance, is a product of  the yearnings of the beleaguered people of the Niger Delta who have for several years suffered the highest magnitude of neglect and marginalization occasioned by mindless and near criminal exploitation of its mineral resources.

Founded in the wake of the failure of the defunct Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) and the former Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) to fully and squarely address the age-long developmental problem of the Niger Delta region, the NDDC was thus conceptualised to intervene in the developmental crisis of the region and fast-track its developmental needs in such a way that the morass of poverty, squalor and misery that has been the lot of the region would be fought to a standstill and the people rescued from the nadir of socio-economic asphyxia.

Sadly however, a cursory look at the performance of the NDDC since its inception would reveal a prosaic picture of the commission so much so that there is hardly any meaningful record on the credit side of its balance sheet either to warrant self applause from its authorities or accolade from its member-states and the general public.

Indeed, there is hardly any discourse on the Niger  Delta region or any forum on the developmental challenges of the region that has not reviewed the activities of the commission vis-à-vis the needs of the people that has not given the NDDC thumbs down.

In fact, the commission has been criticised severally for not achieving its objectives of fostering the much-desired development in the Niger Delta region. And if the performance of the NDDC has been anything but impressive, observers say it is because the lofty goals of the commission as enshrined in its master plan are being gradually sacrificed by some boardroom political gladiators with primordial interests and inordinate quests.

Incensed by this sad state of affairs in the commission, some Niger Deltans and many highly perceptible Nigerians have  canvassed the outright scrapping of the commission and the transfer of its bureaucracy and affairs to the Federal Ministry of Niger Delta for proper attention and co-ordination.

Exasperated by the NDDC’s anthology of woes and the general outcry against its inefficiency and ineffectiveness, President Goodluck Jonathan had appointed a 7-man Committee headed by former Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Orosanya to make an inquest into the conduct of the affairs of the commission and proffer measures that would strengthen the institution.

Albeit, based on the recommendations of the  Orosanya Commission, the former board was sacked and a new board and management appointed to manage its affairs. And even as the new board has started well in earnest, many people, especially Niger Delta indigenes expect President Jonathan to go beyond that by directing the immediate release of the white paper so that the committee’s report would be made public and its recommendations implemented to the letter.

No doubt, there exists certain intervening variables in public policy goals and implementation, especially in a clime like ours, the committee’s report, like many others before it, should not be bound in red tapes and allowed to gather dusts in the drawers of file cabinets of seedy bureaucrats obsessed with impeding the progress of the Niger Delta region.

The Tide believes that the NDDC can be sanitised if the Federal Government musters the political will to speedily address the issues on the panel’s report regardless of whose ox is gored.

We must depart radically from the past when white papers of reports of panels of public interest are never released, much against the grain of the very etiquette under-guarding such exercises.

The Tide is convinced that unless the Federal Government releases the white paper on the Orosanya Panel Report and adheres strictly to its recommendations, the government will still be groping to find solutions to the crisis in the commission, and the Niger Delta region will be the ultimate loser. This is why we think the white paper should be released now.  The people of the Niger Delta are waiting.