NDDC: Swimming against tide of skepticism
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The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has come a long way from the conception of the idea to the drafting of a bill to that effect. And from the passage of the bill by the National Assembly after much ado, to the constitution of its board. The board members had arrived Port Harcourt on January 10, to resume work. In spite of the stages the NDDC has passed, most leaders in the Niger Delta are yet to be convinced on the sincerity of President Olusegun Obasanjo in coming up with the NDDC venture, and the capacity of the Commission to tackle effectively the Niger - Delta problems.
Apart from the first military administrator of the old Rivers State, Alfred Diete Spiff who had described the NDDC as a good thing, and pleaded that the Commission be given the needed chance to operate, other leaders in the zone had remained critical, and skeptical about the genuineness of the project. The national president of the Ijaw National Congress, INC, Dr. Kimse Okoko in an interview with Vanguard Midweek Features recently averred that the NDDC cannot "transform the Niger- Delta, let alone help to reduce unemployment or improve the living conditions of the people of the Niger- Delta." Dr. Okoko insisted that what could transform the Niger- Delta is resource control. The Niger-Delta people, he said, should be given the licence to control their own resources and pay the approved taxes to the federal government.
The national vice-chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the South-South zone, Dr. Marshal Harry, accused President Obasanjo of having a "hidden agenda over the NDDC, more than developing the Niger- Delta." Dr. Harry described the NDDC as a "farce and another ploy to deceive the Niger- Delta people. It is a siphoning pipe." Another statesman in the zone, Chief Dappa Biriye described the NDDC as another name for OMPADEC. His contention was that all the money allocated to OMPADEC was siphoned back to the major ethnic groups through contracts that were awarded but were never done. Chief Biriye demanded for resource control and said that was the only answer to the Niger- Delta question.
Prominent and vocal Ijaw leader, Chief Edward Clark did not hide his doubt about the workability of the NDDC. He predicted that the NDDC was doomed to fail like the OMPADEC; arguing that the only hope is resource control. The fears of these ‘wisemen’ from the South- South might not be unfounded. With the bitter and disappointing experience of OMPADEC, and the then Niger-Delta Development Board, NNDE, the doubts of these Niger-Delta leaders are not baseless. The simple logic which is human, is that since the previous establishments with billions of Naira allocation could fail without recording any tangible success, the NDDC will also fail.
Both President Obasanjo and members of the NDDC board seem not to be unmindful of the scepticism being expressed by leaders of the Niger-Delta region. Seemingly in acknowledgement of those doubts the President has insisted in having Chief Onyema Ugochukwu as the chairman of the board. Perhaps, the President needed somebody who knew where he was coming from, and where he was going to.
Chief Ugochukwu added fillip to this contention after the inaugural meeting of the Board in Port Harcourt. He told his audience that "the President believes that I understand his vision on the Niger-Delta. I was in the first trip he made to Port Harcourt after his election, where the idea was conceived. I have been with him from the beginning and he imagined that I understand the way his vision is working." This seems to be the crux of the matter. Chief Ugochukwu had also accepted that the expectations are great, after their inaugural meeting. He accepted the fact that his board cannot afford to fail because already they are aware of what would be the consequences of their failure. Hence, he remarked in Port Harcourt after their inaugural meeting: "Our mandate is a long term one which is to ensure the development and prosperity of the Niger-Delta on a sustainable basis. The President has asked us to start on a clean slate, design our own system, our own guidelines and our own code of conduct. What the President had in mind is the prosperity of the Niger-Delta. Our approach will be to work with the people."
This somehow summarises the Board’s mission statement. Acknowledging the anxiety on the part of the Niger-Delta people, Chief Ugochukwu pleaded, "we only want to ask the people of the Niger-Delta to please exercise a little patience with us. We do not want to start off with mistakes."
By and large, Chief Ugochukwu and his co- travellers cannot pretend not to know what will happen if the critics or unbelievers in the NDDC are proved right. The Board members are knowledgeable enough to know that if the NDDC fails as predicted by opponents of the Commission, Nigeria as a nation will be worse for it, because the Niger-Delta people will become more stubborn, militant, restive and aggressive than ever before. The demand for resource control and self determination will gain momentum and the end of it will be instability. Should the NDDC fail, there will be no justifiable excuse to give the Niger-Delta people on why they should not control their resources. The NDDC will either answer the Niger-Delta question once and for all, or raise more questions that the country cannot afford to answer.
Chief Ugochukwu and his men it will seem are sitting on a key of gun powder. The way they handle their assignment will either defuse or explode the powder. The fear however is that most members of the board are core politicians who only know the language of money. This accounts for the suggestion from certain quarters that members of the board should be real civil servants or retired civil servants who have not been tainted by politics. The truth of the matter is that Chief Ugochukwu and the NDDC Board have been given a baby to nurse. And the way they nurse the baby will determine the survival of the baby or its death. If the baby dies, there will be a big price to pay and Nigerians will hold members of the board solely responsible.
There are also worries among men and women of goodwill over what should be done to guarantee the success of the NDDC. The first worry is the workers of the defunct OMPADEC. The NDDC will fail if it inherits the workers of the discredited OMPADEC as they are now. Some observers have asked for the mass sacking of all the workers of the then OMPADEC while others would want the NDDC Board to simply conduct thorough staff auditing to fish out the few responsible workers, inherit them and allow the rest to go. The common belief is that 95 per cent of the then OMPADEC staff were contractors masquerading as staff.
"They have learnt how to eat money. They have learnt how to inflate invoices and add two zeros to one thousand to make it one million. It is therefore dangerous to start a pet project like the NDDC with such inglorious staff," says one aggrieved observer.
According to Chief Ugochukwu, the President had given the NDDC the mandate to start on a clean slate, and they should just do that by dealing first, with the staff of the former OMPADEC. On that note, the argument is that they (NDDC) cannot afford to put old wine in a new bottle.
The allegation making the rounds is that some of the staff also collaborated with contractors and the management to kill OMPADEC. The beginning of wisdom of the NDDC Board is to deal with despatch, the issue of the staff of the defunct OMPADEC. This is why Chief Ugochukwu and his men have severally been advised not to allow themselves to be distracted by the discrepancies discovered in the report of the presidential committee on OMPADEC headed by Senator Liyel Imoke on completed projects and what is actually on ground. To this end, the Board should assume that it is starting on a clean slate in line with the President’s advice, many commentators have said.
Another step that can guarantee the success of the NDDC is keeping the shylock contractors at arms length. The shylock contractors are said to have contributed to the death of OMPADEC, NAFCON, etc. The suspicion is that they are only waiting for the Board to settle down before you see them with briefcases, Greek gifts and letters from "Abuja". Once the NDDC Board is able to take care of these two sets of people, it is believed they stand the chance of succeeding even at the risk of being vilified.
"Let them do the job first, if they are recognised by men, history and posterity will do that. But all in all , they must not sleep with their two eyes closed because enemies themselves do not sleep," cautioned one Niger-Delta leader.