IYC Carpets NDDC Over Failure To Dev N’Delta …Says It Has Become A Political Tool

The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has said that successive boards of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) have failed to develop the region, alleging that the agency has become a political tool.
Secretary-General of the IYC, Alfred Kemapadei made the assertion during a chat with newsmen in reaction to the recent dissolution of the Prof Nelson Braimbraifa -led board of the NDDC by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Kemapadei further said that it is regrettable that the board members has deviated from the core mandate of the agency and has now made it a political affair, describing it as a rip off on the people of the Niger Delta region.
“According to him, “The NDDC is a seeming fraud on the people of the Niger Delta. It was deliberately set up to develop the Niger Delta, to take advantage of the funds that come to the region and the contributory funds from the multinationals and come up with a strategic agenda that is factual across the Niger Delta.
“But over the years that board has funded nothing but politics instead of development. It is a fraud to satisfy most people who are not from the Niger Delta. Political contractors!”
The IYC scribe however, called on the president to appoint persons who have the capacity and the interest of developing the region into the board whenever the need arises.
“What is most important is for the president at every point in time to appoint people who have capacity to interpret and effect the development of the Niger Delta and not all these usual appointments where the president consult some political bigwigs and he appoints their boys irrespective of capacity.
“That is what we have always suffered. Even in this last one that is exiting, always been funding politics and not the development,”  Kemapadei noted.

Dennis Naku