NDDC saga: poet laureate Tanure Ojaide condemns Akpabio, Nunie, governors

HENRY AKUBUIRO
Multiple award-winning US based Nigerian poet and revered Graham Porter
professor, Tanure Ojaide, who teaches at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, has condemned the 40 billion naira NDDC scam currently rocking the
Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Ojaide, Nigeria’s highest ranking literary scholar in the US, lamented in a
statement today, “As one born and raised in the Niger Delta and in my writings
advocated the welfare of the people and the restoration of the degraded
environment, I am shocked, ashamed, and enraged by the atrocities and corruption
in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) being reported.”
The renowned writer, said the betrayal of those appointed to deploy part of what
the Federal Government gives back to the region for development of their
exploited and environmentally damaged area was not only reprehensible but
heinous.
“The corruption seething in the NDDC is lethal and has reduced this region that
produces about 90% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings in oil and gas to one
of the poorest areas in the entire world. Now, we the people of the Niger Delta,
cannot blame the collusion of the Federal Government and the multinational
companies for all of our development problems. We have to blame ourselves.
“The same Niger Deltans meant to administer the development of their region have
frittered away the huge resources available. The rage cannot go until something is
done. Let this issue not end with the testimonies of Senator Godswill Akpabio
(Minister of Niger Delta Affairs), Dr. Joi Nunieh and Professor Kemebradikumo
Pondei (the former and current Interim Managing Directors), ‘the forensic
auditors,’ and others.
“Senators and other politicians have secured humongous payments for contracts
which they did not carry out. Those who earn monthly salaries and allowances in
the Commission gave themselves a ‘palliative package’. The extent of the rot is
still unfolding and more iniquities will inevitably be exposed. This is shameful and
measures must be taken for redemption of the NDDC and the region.”
Ojaide is miffed at the silence and conspiracy of Niger Delta youths, regretting that
the youths “who have been the vanguard of resource control should come out in
protests to be counted against the thieves of the funds meant to develop and
transform their region.”
He also called on civil society, Niger Delta and academics, writers, opinion
leaders, among others, to stand up and be counted in this rage and the restoration of
what has been looted from the populace. “The same goes for all owners of the
land—traders, artisans, unemployed youths, etc. Their patrimony is being stolen
before their very eyes by their kith and kin,” he added.
The scholar is also disenchanted with the seemingly conspiracy of silence by the
region’s six governors, senators and members of the House of Representatives,
hence he asked, “Are they part of the problem that none seems to have come out to
condemn in categorical terms the seething corruption?”
He, therefore, demands, “That the Federal Government should set up a committee
of experts, technocrats, and representatives of the Niger Delta people and not the
bureaucratic ‘forensic audit’ panel, give it a maximum of three months to establish
the contracts given and supposed to have been executed and check whether or not
they were really carried out. That investigative committee should establish what
each culprit has stolen or stashed away and publish the report for Niger Deltans
and Nigerians to see.
“All monies stolen should be returned within a short time or the persons remain in
jail for the rest of their lives. The NDDC should be reorganised with checks and
balances to operate in a more transparent way so that the people and the state
governments are aware of what the budget is and what programmes the money is
spent on as well as follow through with their successful execution.”
He would like the National Assembly to know that the issue at stake was a
Nigerian problem, “As such the National Assembly and pertinent institutions in the
criminal justice community should strengthen and broaden the laws that deal with
what is essentially economic treason,” he said, just as he supported Comrade
Joseph Evah’s call for the NDDC to be moved from the Ministry of Niger Delta to the Presidency.