Task Before New NDDC Board 

After many years of squabbles, the Governing Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)
has been inaugurated. The new board has Mrs Lauretta Onochie as Chairman and Dr Samuel Ogbuku as Managing Director. With the new board in place, it is largely believed that the negative public perception of the commission will be reversed.
A wide range of people and stakeholders in the Niger Delta region are relieved that a new NDDC board has been composed and inaugurated into office. It came exactly four years after the last one, headed by Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba from Cross River State, was disbanded in January 2019. Between 2019 and now, there had been four interim management for the commission, which served without a board.
The interim arrangement had generated quite a furore, but President Muhammadu Buhari was clear that there would not be a board until a comprehensive forensic audit of the commission was concluded. The audit, requested by the governors of the region, was necessary to address many governance and operational issues and reset the commission. The new board should set itself the target of transforming the agency into a nimble, effective change agent in line with its stated objectives.
Established in 2000 following violent restiveness accompanying the demand for resource control, NDDC was envisaged as an interventionist firm to provide infrastructure, training, and education in the Niger Delta region and other oil states. The constitution of the board accords with Section 2 (1) of the NDDC Act 2000. This is its seventh board since its founding 22 years ago. Those from the region expect so much from the commission. It is expected that the new executive will live up to the high hopes of Niger Deltans.
Inaugurating the board, Mr Umana Umana, Minister of the Niger Delta, who oversees the commission, noted that its first order of business should include diligent implementation of the report of the forensic audit; addressing the numerous cases of irregular employment in the commission and concluding work on the ongoing personnel audit to ensure that all cases of employment from 2019 were following extant rules and regulations of the service.
Drawing from the minister’s admonition, the new board should hit the ground running directly. Onochie’s immediate task is also to consider the advice of the Rivers State governor, Chief Nyesom Wike. The governor had charged the agency to avoid duplication of projects by consulting state governments on their intended projects when the Governing Board led by its chairman visited him. He also urged the establishment to utilise its budget on strategic development issues in the region and shun financing politicians for elections.
To continue in this trajectory, the new management must adopt Wike’s model of quality project delivery. It must focus more on impactful regional projects and completion of ongoing undertakings to better serve the people of the region and deliver on the mandate of the NDDC, rather than indulge in the award of spurious and indiscriminate new contracts, using politicians as contractors, even as the Rivers State governor emphasised.
The board should prioritise the interest and development of the Niger Delta region. To this end, it must pressure the President to release the forensic audit report of the agency carried out last year for accountability, transparency, and good corporate governance as well as zero tolerance for corruption. No one should construe NDDC as an accessory of the ruling APC. Rather, it is an agency created to ameliorate the anguish of the people caused by environmental degradation ensuing from the activities of oil exploration, production, and spillage.
There is no doubt that the Buhari administration has fought hard to make good governance and transparency an important component of our public service. Recent arrests and convictions of high-profile persons who had served in senior government positions have sent clear signals that this government means business in that regard. But the new managers must understand that strict adherence to the relevant public service rules, particularly procurement thresholds in the Public Procurement Act, and keeping to financial regulations to ensure prudence, should be their guiding principle.
NDDC should refocus on new development concepts that centre on core infrastructure projects such as interstate roads. The extent of the decay of Trunk A roads in the region is worrisome. It is a paradox that an area which produces the nation’s gigantic income is straddled with decrepit motorways. Hence, the new management should immediately reconstruct the Eleme Junction and many other broken areas on the East-West Road.
Similarly, attention should be given to the Regional Infrastructure Development Framework conceived by the Federal Government to build an integrated regional economy with the interstate road, rail and water transportation networks; standard health and education facilities, as well as focus on security and human capital development. This framework, if well implemented, would catalyse a holistic development of the region and stem rampant cases of insecurity, environmental degradation, oil thefts, militancy, and agitations.
The new team should realise that despite previous efforts, the region is not significantly better off. In the latest national multidimensional poverty survey statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the South-South region is the poorest of the three southern regions, while Bayelsa, a major oil state, is the second-poorest Nigerian state by percentage of poor persons, beating only Sokoto in the North-West.
Yet, the NDDC claims many successes. It says it has delivered 15,307 projects, of which 60 per cent are capital projects and over 3,000 rural electrical projects, apart from thousands of scholarships awarded to deserving students. Its master plan, if faithfully implemented, could go a long way in improving the quality of life in its area of coverage.  Successive NDDC management also complains that its allotted funds are never fully released by the government, thereby hindering service delivery.
To break decisively with the past, President Buhari should publish the report of the forensic audit, and order the arrest and prosecution of culprits. All stolen funds and proceeds of corruption should be recovered. The new board should overhaul procurement processes and eliminate sharp practices. There should be effective project monitoring and oversight. It should cut waste, and excess staff and avoid white elephant projects with little or no economic value.