Achieving N’Delta Integrated Master Plan

Penultimate weekend, participants at a two-day dialogue on the Niger Delta which held in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, were reported to have risen from their deliberations with a resolution to seek the implementation of an integrated development master plan for the oil-rich region.
A communiqué signed by the Chairman, Niger Delta Dialogue and Amayanabo of Twon-Brass in Bayelsa State, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, called for a robust engagement of all stakeholders for a review, update and revalidation of the Niger Delta master plan.
Attended by leading traditional rulers, elder statesmen and opinion leaders from across the region, as well as Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Victor Ndom-Egba, the 7th Niger Delta Dialogue with the theme: ‘A Revival Dialogue for the Niger Delta’, stressed the need for the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA) to consistently drive the development of the region by playing a greater leadership and coordinating role on matters pertaining to the finalisation  of an integrated master plan for the region.
The Calabar parley, which also had in attendance representatives of the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), equally called for the master plan’s implementation targets to include development goals of the region in all sectors. It further stressed the importance of assembling core professionals in the region with the requisite competence to implement plans and ensure continuity. Participants were also said to have advised that political leaders in the region work across party lines and individual viewpoints in pursuing matters relating to the economic future of the Niger Delta by showing greater commitment to transparent management of resources.
The communiqué implored the NDDC to return to its original master plan of simultaneously dealing with sizeable programmes across the Niger Delta rather than engage in micro community-level undertakings that often result in unnecessary duplication of projects between it, states and local council authorities in the region.
The Tide endorses the position of the regional confab while also urging the Federal government to start demonstrating genuine commitment to tackling the challenges facing the Niger Delta region. We note that it is time for government to stop paying lip service to the development of the oil-rich region by mustering the needed political will to make the difference as promised by President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) during the 2015 electioneering campaigns.
It is quite lamentable that the Federal Government has not been releasing the yearly budgetary allocations to the NDDC; a situation which has militated against the implementation of the region’s master plan. We wish to emphasise that the integrated master plan remains the road map for sustainable development of the region and requires the commitment of all stakeholders for its actualisation.
The Tide also urges all state governors in the region, the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and other stakeholders to synergise with the Federal Government and the NDDC for the way forward. All parties must look beyond political and individual considerations to develop the region and help the interventionist agency deliver on its mandate.
It is, indeed, time to break from the ugly past when the Presidency had tended to practically starve or suffocate the NDDC by withholding its statutory funding. Niger Delta communities must, on their part, also begin to key into the prevailing new spirit and see projects sited in their domains as their own rather than hide under some unnecessary and, oftentimes, self-destruct agitations to sabotage genuine efforts at executing such projects and programmes for the overall well-being of the region and its long-suffering people. The time is now.