Follow Us on Google
Omoniyi Salauden
At last, the embattled former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joi Nunieh, made appearance in the House of Representatives on Friday to testify beforethe Committee investigating alleged financial misappropriation in the agency.
This followed a failed attempt by the security operatives to carry out an order of arrest on her in Port Harcourt without a warrant.According to Nunieh’s narrative, some heavily armed policemen had stormed her residence with spirited effort to break the security door to her house before Governor Nyesom Wike made a sudden appearance on the scene and ordered them out of her premises.
She said: “They (policemen) started trying to break the security door. Because it was a security door, they spent time trying to break the door. I asked for the warrant of arrest, they said they didn’t have any.
“I then said I cannot go with any of the policemen. I need to see the warrant of arrest. We are not in a banana republic. So, my governor came and sent them out and said why would they come to arrest a woman like an armed robber? My governor told them that they should leave the compound.”
Subsequently, she took refuge in the Government House, Port Harcourt, at least for a relief of the trauma.
Nunieh and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, have been embroiled in a wide range of controversies bordering on fund mismanagement, abuse of office, shoddy contract deals, sexual harassment, et cetera. The two chambers of the National Assembly are digging into the alleged financial impropriety by the current NDDC’s Interim Management Committee (IMC).
However, rather than facing the real issue of public concern, the two principal actors literally turned the matter to a soap opera show, entertaining the viewing audience with accusations and counter accusations of one wrong doing or the other. The drama is still raging with startling revelations. From the little evidence so far available in the public domain, it is obvious that the commission is stinking with corruption. Like the proverbial deep blue sea, the more you look, the less you see. In one instance, Nunieh alleged that Akpabio told her to award N5 billion fictitious contract, which she declined. In another breadth, she said the issue of forensic audit which was the primary reason the Interim Management Committee was put in place was a ruse.
“I did not pay any Consultant for the Forensic Audit because there is no Forensic Audit going on in NDDC.
“There is no Forensic Audit going on in NDDC. If you find out that Forensic Audit is going on, disregard my presentation,” she declared before the committee investigating the alleged misappropriation of funds.
She capped it all by claiming that she was put under pressure to allocate N10billion to the Niger Delta people as Christmas palliative, adding that she was removed from office for failing to dance to Akpabio’s tunes. Smart woman! Powerful! What is left for Nunieh to tell Nigerians is the reason she deserves a laurel for her courage to stand her ground in the face of intimidation.
Technically, she has succeeded in putting Akpabio on the defensive, especially with her latest bombshell: accusation of sexual harassment. This is not only strategic, but also calculative and mindboggling. Why did she not blow the alarm at the time the sexual advancements were been made to her? Was it for fear of shame and stigmatization? Nigerians need to know this so as not make the allegation look like a frame up or a diversionary tactics. For a woman of her status, silence is not golden in a circumstance like this. It is well too known that other learned lawyers like her have been at the forefront of the campaign against sexual harassment. One would have expected her to make a scapegoat out of the situation to lend credence to the sustained campaigns.
Giving the current mood of the nation, it is most likely that she would win the sympathy of the people, owing to the present rage of emotion in the land over the issue of rape. But that would be coming too cheap. The challenge here is how Akpabio would wriggle himself out of the entanglement unscathed.
On the other hand, the likelihood is there for people to shift attention away from the real issue of corruption and focus on the ensuing legal battle.
Already, Akpabio has detailed his lawyers to commence legal actions against Nunieh over allegations she made against him. In a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Anietie Ekong, he described the allegations as “cornucopia of false, malicious and libellous.
It reads in part: “Akpabio has instructed his lawyers to seek necessary redress in a court of competent jurisdiction on his behalf over the defamatory statements made by the former acting managing director of the Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ms. Joi Nunieh.”
Beneath all this is a rancid odour of corruption, which has rendered the commission as an intervention agency for the development of Nigeria Delta ineffective. It is for this reason that the stakeholders are keen on seeing the outcome of the National Assembly’s investigation in details of how much funds have been released to the commission as well as the utilization.
Joi Nunieh was born to the family of the late Senator Cyrus Nunieh. Her father was the first Senator and lawyer from Ogoni. Leveraging on her background and profession as a lawyer, she had served as a private contractor with the Chevron Nigerian Limited and Shell Petroleum before her appointment as the acting managing director of the NDDC. Prior to the appointment, Nunieh was appointed the National Coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP). In 2011, she contested for the Senate seat on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) but lost. She was fired as the MD of the NDDC for allegation of none participation in the mandatory National Youth Service Corp (NYSC).
