Driving a new vision for NDDC

The bell tolls for the godfather syndrome in Nigeria’s
public service. It may sound like a tall order, but President Goodluck Jonathan
says he is confident that the conniving spirit of nepotism could be subdued, if
not altogether banished from our public life. The number one citizen thinks
that we should begin to give merit a pride of place.

The President wraps up his new policy thrust with a tinge of
humour. He said: “You don’t have to know somebody who knows somebody before you
can be given any high office to serve in the new direction we want to chart for
the country.” Perhaps, to demonstrate his seriousness to fight the “man know
man” tendency, the President  in April this year, directed the Ministers
of Finance and Health to advertise the vacant positions of chief executives of
the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the National Health Insurance
Scheme (NHIS) for competent Nigerians to apply.

He said that henceforth, all vacant federal offices would be
advertised to enable competent Nigerians apply for such jobs. That, in his
view, will ensure that all appointments into sensitive government offices will
be based on merit. It is also expected to effectively clip the wings of
Godfathers. For those who doubt the President’s resolve, he would say again:
“The feeling that a Nigerian must know somebody who knows somebody who will
talk to somebody before he gets something must end.”

This Presidential directive is beginning to change the way
things are done in some federal government agencies. The Niger Delta
Development Commission, NDDC, is one such agency now playing by the new rules.
The new board and management of the commission had, from the word go, chosen
the path of excellence in service delivery. The board hit the ground running
after its inauguration by President Jonathan on November 29, 2011.

At his very first encounter with the media, the NDDC
Managing Director, Dr. Christian Oboh, pledged to serve the people of the Niger
Delta in the best way possible.”The people of the region are the people we are
working for and we are going to train the youths. I am a youth myself, I have
been empowered, and I need to empower other people. So, we are going to do
everything to empower them,” he said.

The new boss got down to business as soon as the handover
ceremonies were concluded. He quickly approved the immediate release of funds
to settle school fees of beneficiaries of NDDC scholarship studying in the
various universities abroad. “We heard that our children studying overseas have
not paid their fees, we must pay their fees by next week,” he declared.

From the first few actions of the new helmsman, it was clear
that the interventionist agency had been imbued with a new vibrancy. Certainly,
the commission entered a new phase from that point. The youthful leadership
became a boom for the youths of the region. They are now fully on board in the
arduous task of fast-tracking development in Nigeria’s oil-producing region.
The interventionist agency has since broadened its youth empowerment
programmes, especially in the area of training quality manpower. The foreign
scholarship scheme has been strengthened while new young engineers and lawyers
have been employed through a very transparent and credible process.

In all, the NDDC management placed a lot of premium on the
selection process. Everything was done to ensure that all qualified Niger Delta
youths were given equal opportunities. An independent institution, the Rivers
State University of Science and Technology [RSUST] provided the electronic
platform for the selection process for both the scholarship and recruitment of
engineers and lawyers.

The NDDC, consultant on the exercise, Dr. Hilkiah Igoni, explained
that the essence of electronic interview was to ensure transparency and
accountability in the process. “The whole idea of making it electronic is to
ensure that the candidates can actually see their results immediately”.

The Director, ICT, in the university, Prof. S. A. Braid
commended the NDDC for introducing a modern approach to examination and
selection of staff. “The online exams are becoming the order of the day and for
NDDC to do this, means that it is in tune with the current trend.”

The board and management of the NDDC had thought it wise to
recruit more qualified engineers to effectively supervise its projects. To get
the best, a total of 1,200 candidates were put through the commission’s online
examination held at the RSUST electronic examination centre in Port Harcourt.
Another 3,100 passed through the same electronic tests for the scholarships to
pursue post-graduate studies abroad.

The Director of Education, Health and Social Services in the
NDDC, Dr. Christy Atako, gave an insight into the foreign scholarship
programme. She said the commission needed to encourage the youths who studied
engineering and other science courses to specialise in areas that would assist
it in project monitoring and other related assignments. “We believe that our
children should have some exposure outside the country in addition to their
studies to enable them to learn from people of other nations in both lifestyle
and academics,” she said.

One of the beneficiaries of the Post-graduate Foreign
Scholarship Scheme, Miss Tubolayefa Warekuromor, is bubbling with ideas after
bagging a Masters Degree in Management Information Systems from the Coventry
University in the United kingdom. She said that the exposure she got during her
studies in the UK has triggered a burning passion “to take home the knowledge,
experience and skills to contribute to the development of the Niger Delta.”

The director described the selection process as very
transparent. “Each candidate has the opportunity to compete and then we take
the best. Several applications were received but only those who met the
criteria were shortlisted for the computer-based test,” she said. The
successful candidates who emerged from the selection process have now been
employed and are already cutting their teeth at the NDDC headquarters.

The lessons from all these are that Godfathers have been
sent packing from the NDDC. Surely, the newly employed engineers and lawyers
can testify to this.. Every one of them got the job on merit. No more, no less.
Much of the credit goes to the management team led by Dr. Oboh. According to
NDDC’s Director of Legal Services, Barrister George Ero, “we were getting
letters from different sources urging us to assist one person or the other. But
the MD stood his ground and insisted on merit. So, those who were successful
may not have known anybody in the commission.”

In this age of self-interest and clinging to ethnic
cleavages, the new direction in NDDC is commendable and worthy of emulation.
That is the way other agencies of government, be it at the federal or state
levels should be heading. After all, excellence runs on the fuel of merit.
Mediocrity on the other hand stalls the vehicle of good service delivery.

As part of its efforts to remove all impediments to credibly
delivering on its mandate, the NDDC has embraced SERVICOM, which waves a banner
of contract between the Federal Government and the Nigerian people. The
commission obviously recognises the right of Niger Deltans to demand good
service. The NDDC boss said the introduction of SERVICOM in the commission
would help fast track project implementation and execution in the region. He
charged directors of the commission to immediately establish SERVICOM units in
their departments.

By upholding the principle of SERVICOM, the commission would
be better placed to promote transparency and accountability, as well as
encourage full stakeholder’s participation in decision making. That would go a
long way in enhancing the quality of management in the commission.

The values of integrity and accountability in public service
cannot be overemphasised. A leadership with an eye for excellence would not
joke with discipline, honesty, fairness, dependability and reliability. Of
course, the culture of responsibility must begin from the top leadership, which
must be in a position to give direction not only by talking integrity, but
walking transparency and accountability.

Ifeatu Agbu