Managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, in this interview, spoke on the leadership reforms in the commission, stating that President Bola Tinubu has stabilised the system. According to him, staff now get paid regularly, which has enhanced their productivity. On corruption, he said contractors who try to cheat the system are shown the way out.
We know, we have read, we have seen many things, so can it be traced to those who were before you?
Well, you see, the issue is that the problems and challenges of NDDC in the past were multifaceted. NDDC, on assumption of office, I realized that NDDC has done quite a lot. NDDC was under-appreciated from all levels of criticisms. Now you ask yourself: how did NDDC come about? NDDC came about through the struggles of the people of the Niger Delta. And what were the people of Niger Delta struggling for? Who were the people that clamoured for NDDC? It was not just the elite, it was people in the creeks. The elite only took it up and negotiated as leaders. Where were these people living? Who were they? These people were living in communities. And what were they lacking? They were lacking schools, internal roads in their communities, jetties, water and light. And as I said, when NDDC was formed, the needs assessment was based on ‘how do we make these people comfortable in their communities?’ NDDC carried out a lot of projects in these communities. Many communities today that you see along the riverine areas in the Niger Delta have jetties. All those jetties were done by NDDC. Internal work roads in the communities. Because communities before then, during rainy season, by this period, rain boots would already be selling. But there were no concrete roads for them to walk. These were the things that brought about the agitations. They did not have water. NDDC, as I said, provided that and other things. There were no good schools. Schools were built. At least, I can challenge everybody to go around these communities to check if NDDC did not do anything. That is why today, if you go round the Niger Delta, in many communities, the only government presence you see are NDDC projects. Many state governments just concentrated on the urban areas. NDDC was going to do projects in these communities, especially in riverine communities where nobody wanted to go. NDDC was able to penetrate all those places. Those projects were never inaugurated. Some of those projects were not even handed over to the communities. Contractors would just leave the site and the community would just take over. Some of them were abandoned. Yes, the conception of some of those projects were also done in a way that, ‘well, let us settle some people’. Because they wanted to quell the pressure. So some of them were not completed. Some persons saw it as settlement and also got the money. NDDC now hit some other places. Because NDDC was seen as a platform where favours were being dispensed. Certain persons were being empowered. Some persons now turned to be NDDC contractors that probably would be challenging their paramount rulers in their communities because they were NDDC contractors. Politics came in and everybody wanted to be a board member or managing director of NDDC. So the frequent and high turnover of management in NDDC became a problem. Boards did not last for more than one or two years. So, anybody that comes in feels like this is my goal by next year. Nobody was thinking of doing anything. NDDC now became more transactional, where nobody wanted to sit tight to do anything. And even if you try to do, contracts that were awarded, after one year, they throw those people out. They abandon those ones, they start their own. That was where we started having abandoned projects littering all over the place. So, as much as the management as of then could be culpable, even the people were also culpable because they were the ones always protesting. Oh, let these people go. Somebody sponsors people to be protesting so that they will come in. So we are all culpable. Between 2015 and 2023, that is how many years? Eight years. I was the ninth MD of NDDC. How will that kind of a place grow?
So what’s the secret, because you have lasted for more than three years and we no longer hear of infighting?
The truth is that, like I said, we are all culpable. The question is, when people are protesting, what will the life be like? Will I at the time also protest? Some of us might have done it in one way or the other. I always say everybody is culpable. Nobody can say he or she is free from it, even the political leaders, because everybody wants to ensure that the person that is there is his person. This person that is not there let this person go. The governors also have their own pressure. Everybody wants to put the blame on those who are there. But what role did you play? Now the secret of why things are different is because of leadership. This President, my President, decided to say he wants NDDC to work and he has said you are going to be there to complete your term and you have to be accountable for your four years. You know what it means for somebody to tell you you have to be accountable for your four years. That is to say, now, EFCC is not disturbing you, ICPC is not disturbing you, but after your four years you have to look at what you did. That is enough for you to advise yourself. He has made it clear you have to be accountable for your four years. That is what he told the whole board. So at that point everybody has to advise themselves that we have no choice but to stick together. He said, ‘Look, I am not throwing you people away. No pressure will make me throw you people away. For once, you people will be there to complete your four years but, at the end of the day, you will account for your four years.’ If a leader has told you that, I do not think you need any soothsayer to tell you to read what he has told you. And he is willing to give us every support and every cooperation. We did not end there; he directed the minister to make us sign a performance bond based on certain deliverables and KPIs, which you have to be submitting, quarterly reports. So, you can see that you have a President that is interested in what is happening there. He is not a President that has just said I have found out what I want to do with these people. That is what was happening before. This President is putting his eyes there. So, that has also taken away every political pressure.
Are you saying the governors of the region are no longer putting pressure on NDDC MD to do their bidding?
If somebody has told you that in four years you will be held accountable for your four years, if you choose to toe the line of somebody who nominated you and forget about your job, I do not think that person will be in Kuje with you.
So, has the presidential intervention made any difference now?
Yes. So, you have to advise yourself. Even when somebody is putting pressure on you, you must know how to manage that person. Right now, the man is expecting certain deliverables from you quarterly. You have to submit your quarterly report based on certain KPIs and he has made you to go into a performance bond. So you now know that if this person is bringing this in this thing that will affect the system, you yourself will advise them. So right now, I can assure you that we are not subjected to any political pressure. That is why we can do our job not looking over our shoulders and, also, by the grace of God, we have the person of the President of the Senate who is also from the region, who has also promised to give us every support. I have never had any challenge with any National Assembly. Our budget was passed within 24 hours unprecedentedly. So, he has given us every support we need, drawing now from the body language of Mr. President and the support Mr. President has given, you notice that he has a good body language. Just like you as a parent, If you do not make people understand that you have special interest in a particular child, people might treat that as your child. But if you make people understand that this is my child, this one is my child, people will know that, if they touch that child, they will kill her, isn’t it? So, that is what leadership does. We are benefiting from the leadership of Mr. President. That does not mean we do not balance political interests. You have to. But now you are the one in the driver’s seat. Not someone driving you and taking you to where you do not know. And you cannot even shout for help. They might say, okay, you are making noise, go down from this car. But this one you are the one driving. You can choose to stop at Elele. You say, okay, I will stop at Elele, let us buy corn so that people who are inside the vehicle can eat. So, you are not looking at your time. Okay, I still have five minutes, so I can stop here, let me give them something. You can say, okay, since we are going to Lokoja, let us stop at local restaurant so that everybody can have lunch because you have five minutes. You are now working with your own time. But you must also put that human face to the job, knowing that, whether we like it or not, we are politicians and we must also look at certain interests. We are running certain interests. I am not talking about sharing money. I am talking about ensuring that you take projects to areas where you have political interests so that the politicians can also stand before their own to say, this is what I have to do. For us, that is what we understand about political interests. We manage both political interests and interests from the IOCs. Right now, we have decided to capture interests from the IOCs. IOCs, before now, were reluctant in contributing towards funding NDDC because they felt NDDC was not carrying out projects in areas of their operation. So, when I resumed office, this was their major complaint. I told them and assured them that we were going to change that. Right now, in our budget committee, we try to ensure that they have a representative. We try to ensure that all the state governments have representatives. The whole idea is to reduce confrontation between NDDC and state governments, so that the state governments can say, we are doing roads here, you can also do roads here. And that is why we did with our partners for sustainable development conference before our budget, where all the state governments were represented. This is what you print from the state, and state by state did their presentations. Is this what you all agreed? They screamed, Yes. The media was there. So, every state came. The state director of NDDC made the presentation of the project based on the state. The state government sent all their representatives, like my state, the SSG was the one that represented the state. Most of the states, the SSGs represented them. Is this what you people agreed at the state level? Yes. Is there any disagreement? No disagreement. So, everything was done so transparently. We have to go through that process before sending the budget to Abuja, so that at the end of the day no governor will come and tell us that this road you are building here is against what we wanted to do. This has been a major challenge. So, we are trying to correct all that. Yes, in the past, we agreed that mistakes have been made in NDDC. But, you see, in life you don’t keep dwelling on mistakes. Mistakes sometimes are also lessons for you to learn from. Mistakes are part of success. If people do not make certain mistakes you will not learn. You will want to make those mistakes. So, those mistakes form part of our success story. That is why we are here today at the level of our 25 years anniversary. At the level of 25 years anniversary, we can boldly tell you that we are celebrating an NDDC that is alive, an NDDC that is healthy. If you visit our headquarters, you will think maybe you are in CBN. An NDDC that today the staff are committed to work. The output of everything you do is based on the commitment of the staff. That determines the quality of the output. We inherited an NDDC that in four years, staff allowances were not paid. In four years, staff were not promoted, there was stagnation in promotion, no promotion exam was written because the NDDC is self-funded. So, if you mismanage it, the staff will suffer. So, at the time possibly the person never bothered about the welfare of staff; they were bothered about paying contractors. We came in because we needed to reorganize, because we cannot be talking about reorganizing without also managing those who carry out work day-to-day. At least, today my staff are here and all the allowances have been paid up to date. In one year, we cleared all outstandings for four years and as of today all the allowances are up to date. Today, if you have the opportunity, I can assure you you will want to work in NDDC because my staff are the happiest staff in Nigeria, I can tell you that.
How do you fine-tune the overlapping interest of the six commissions?
Let me just say something. You know every cancer has various body organs impact. NDDC will remain NDDC and the development commissions will remain the development commissions. Everybody will carry their cross. Let me speak for the South-South. I welcome the idea of the South-South Development Commission. I think we as a region we even need more when people were saying why would we have NDDC and not South-South Development Commission. In the North Central, we have the HYPPADEC that is the same thing NDDC stands here. NDDC was an offshoot of HYPPADEC to take care of those oil mineral producing areas that is why in our distribution, we distribute based on the ratio of production. We have 25% equality of state and 75% issue of production so that is why the man from Cross River State will say NDDC is marginalizing them. No, I am not marginalizing the state. It is based on equality of state and ratio of production. So as an MD of NDDC now and based on ratio of production, Bayelsa is number three, after Delta, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, and Rivers State follows. If they start sharing scholarships, Bayelsa will take higher because I am the MD. No. People check the record. Delta must come first, followed by Akwa Ibom and the Bayelsa State. So that is how NDDC operates. But now the South-South Development Commission means that everybody is equal. A Cross River man can be the MD. He can decide to take everything to his place he can take higher than even the man from Delta, no problem. But in NDDC you cannot do that because you will be attracting trouble because you have directors that are from Delta. You have directors that are from Akwa Ibom. They are looking into the system. The day you try to manipulate the system it will show. You have a board where you have state reps who are also abreast with what is happening there so that is a different structure. So, the South-South Development Commission will now give a lease of life to the likes of Cross River who are not getting much from NDDC to say at this level everybody can do it. Even in our various states where you have NDDC today you say you want to go and do certain projects in Akure the Ìlàje people will die. I am giving you the example, that is why if you go to Akure today you will not see much of NDDC projects. You see from Okichukupa down to Ìlàje. Even for us to say we want to do a programme in Akure, the Ìlàje people will say no. If you go to Delta, the chairman is coming from Delta or the Itsekiri people will say no we are the highest oil producing why not we. But you see in the South-South, nobody talks about. It is a level-playing ground for everybody. Whatever NDDC does the South-South Development Commission might decide to say let them also focus in those areas that are not oil producing it is their choice to complement what NDDC is doing.
In spite of the negative stories about the NDDC maybe in the past. Do you think the success stories that the NDDC recorded is probably also responsible for increasing agitations?
To a large extent, I won’t agree with you. If a model fails nobody would want to take up the task. So I will not agree with you. But for me, I pray that let them learn from the mistakes of NDDC. Today if it took America 200 years to develop certain technology, Nigeria will not take 200 years to acquire that technology. If it took 200 years to develop it, you can procure it. That is to say Nigeria and America can be at the same level. So, if NDDC took us 25 years to get to where we are, let them know that they do not need to give excuse to say it took NDDC 25 years to get this level. Let them give us time. No. You have seen the mistakes. Now they should understand that part of challenges is internal management, cooperation among themselves. The board and management must cooperate and make sacrifices for the benefit of the people. That is what we in NDDC should do. Good a thing we have a board chairman that I can say is God-sent, who has been able to manage both the board and management because he understands the roles. Not a board chairman that will think he is an executive chairman. Because politicians will start putting ideas in your head. My chairman knows his role. The management, we know our roles and limits. We respect the board. The board is all about policy making. We are to implement the policies. Where we need to go to the board we go to the board. And not taking the board for granted. There is mutual respect. And where we make mistakes, the chairman calls us and we discuss it in-house because there is no where people work that mistakes could not be made. I will not say that we are perfect. But we are committed towards delivery Mr President’s mandate that he has given to us that is to ensure that the people of the Niger Delta do not suffer. Good enough some of us are coming in with certain level of experience. My chairman has been a commissioner for years. He is a lawyer. He has been in oil and gas sector. I do not have that much experience myself. I have been a chief of staff in the government house. But the experience I carry is the one that helping at the grassroots because I have been a youth leader, a publicity secretary of the council. I have been a student union youth leader. So, in every angle we are there. Even the people that used to block NDDC gate, we understand the same language. We know ourselves. We have perfect mix that is working for us. Today, the youths are not limited to SA youth or one middleman. The youth can reach out to me. By the time I came down to my house for breakfast, I had up to 50 youths. We had breakfast together before I left for the office because you cannot stop them. Today, I am privileged to be MD but we all have a history. When you shut your gate and keep them outside your gate then you have problem. You do not see crowds outside the gate. My agreement is that come here and do your business. Do not harass anybody. The day you arrest anybody we will have problem with you. All of us can be mad if we want to be mad. There is nothing you know that I do not know. So, you cannot also intimidate me. Let it be known. But above all, one of the major secrets is demystifying the office. Because people used to look at the office as if there is a god in there. Or inside the office of the MD CEO there are billions stashed in there. I do not give people money when I go to the office because once you set that precedence you will be a problem. On assumption of office I told the people that I am not going to do eye service. I say look gentlemen, I will not do it. I say what I owe you people is to empower you and not impoverished you people. Tomorrow you are back at the gate blocking the gate. And if we do the water hisense and have the one or two slots. There is somebody somewhere that has 1,000 slots. So, you opening empowerment programme for those people but not these people. I said I was not going to do that. They thought it was a joke. I said I want to grow young men who will be doing from one kilometre to 10 kilometres. Today, you do not see them blocking the gate. Today, you do not see them standing outside because all of them are engaged and we pay them. January this year, some of those ones that normally block the gate came to the house, I got a carton of expensive whiskey and $10,000 that they came to tell me thank you. I was moved to tears because I saw results. Something that seems not to be possible but it is and turning around the lives of people. I have been there before. So I know what it takes. So let us change that narrative. Today, if you go to my gate you will not see two people standing outside. Not everybody who comes to visit you needs money. Some of them can be contractors. Some people stay in their houses because they do not have anything to do. Some of them are frustrated. What they need is hope and the government turned them down. They will come en masse to block the gate. I made sure I see everybody. Some of them do not come to look for money; they come with proposals.
One of the projects that we did was from one of them. If you have ideas bring them, we will implement them. We engaged them. So, they go back home having that hope. If ABC have gotten it, one day it will be my own turn. But when there is traffic and nobody is getting at all, then there is no hope. So, we decided to demystify the office. Today , I go to Abuja nobody runs around looking for me. Before if they hear that the MD of NDDC is in Abuja, people will pay transport ahead, book hotels to see the MD. Today, I go to Abuja nobody looks for me. As we are in this Port Harcourt, at least 50 people will be at the gate waiting to see the MD. I still go to clubs normally. I still hangout. This is the town I was born. I grew up in this. I had my primary to university education in this town. I must live a life in a way that when I leave this office there will be legacy.
MD, I am just worried about the scholarship amnesty programme. What is the return rate?
Most of them come back from overseas. Some of them chose to do PhD. Those who chose to do PhD you cannot stop them. But I can tell you that the success rate is very high because of processes. We do not subject it to political manoeuvering. Because if you subject it to political manoeuvering, there are people that will bring third class people. There are people that will bring all sorts of people. Maybe some of them will go there and do drugs and some will go and fail out. In Coventry University last year alone, we had 17 distinctions. I was proud. They offered me a front seat during the ceremony. Out of the 17, 15 of them are women. NDDC was given the front row at the convocation. We are not talking about before. We are talking about now. Have you seen our scholars protest? Just yesterday, I signed the fee for these ones that are going now. If there is any delay, it will be only through CBN. They will get it because they know it is forex. It is not something that hits account immediately.
What was the cause of accumulated unpaid allowance, delayed promotion?
I used the word ‘priority’. If you do not prioritize staff welfare you will not stay because NDDC salary is not from the federal government. We are the ones that pay. So, if they give you the money today to take care of your late brother’s children and maybe your late brother left an estate where you will be getting money to take care of the children, and that period you say there is one house I need to buy in Asokoro, let me buy that one. Maybe before it gets to their school fee time, I would have probably made money. And at that time you did not get the money you will see that your late brother’s children are at home and school fees have not been paid. That is priority. NDDC, as I speak, has not gotten allocation. Out of three months they have given us allocation for one month. Why are our staff not feeling it? It is because when I came in what I did was once we get allocation, I remove salary for two months. So, even if there is a drought, staff would not feel it. It is all about prudence in management and making your priorities right. But if I say my priority is how to pay my friends who are contractors so that at the end of the day they will bring something for me and I carry all the money and pay to them and we have not gotten allocation for three months and they just paid one month, maybe we would have been owing staff salary for three months. First thing first, you must have it at the back of your mind that you are managing an organization where the salary does not come from the federal government directly. You are the one to pay them and you pay them based on what you have in your account. So, if you mismanage, your staff would suffer. And these staff are the ones working for you day to day. These staff are the people that will inspect projects. So, if you do not pay their entitlements that is when contractors will be bribing them at the end of the day we will be giving you wrong evaluations, churning out fake projects and substandard projects. But now we have the authority to question any staff because you have no reason for not doing the right thing because I am not owing you. Just to answer your question, it is all about prioritisation. So, we prioritize staff welfare because anything we do, it is the staff that work. They are the ones we use. We have staff across the 9 State offices. They are going for inspection of projects in those places I am not going. I select few projects that I go to inspect. But those who go to do the evaluation are engineers. I am not an engineer. For example, today, the solar lights we are doing people make reference to the solar lights as a standard. For us to have done all these solar lights across the region, why is it not being abused? It is because we have decided to create standards. One we have consultants who give us their consulting report, evaluation and state offices do their own evaluation. If state offices evaluation contradicts that of our consultants that state director will be queried. If you like go and pay the state director to go and do substandard jobs. The consultant will bring it out they will check the level if it is 100 watts, if it fails it will not be passed. There was a very big contractor in NDDC who thought he could beat our system. He did a solar light and they said he did 60 watts as against 100 watts. The consultant said we have to pay him. I said no. Oga, look at the report here showing that he did 60 watts. How can I pay you for 100 watts? If I pay you that means I will be the one to go to prison. The man could not help it. He has spent so much. He started crying in my office. I told him that tears cannot move me because I have a future to protect and files cannot be destroyed. Tomorrow somebody will say what is in the file is 60 watts and I paid for 100 watts. Is it not a problem? So, what I did was that I called his governor and said this your person that did this light did 60 watts. I say let me just let you know. We are going to pay him for 60 watts. Ordinarily we would have said we would not pay because it is against the contract agreement. I am only telling you so that you don’t travel to another state and say the lights in those place are better than yours. Just know that it is this your friend, sir. And the governor called him and said do what you can do. A lot of my friends suffered it. Some had to go and change the entire light. So, when people saw that they cannot beat it, everybody decided to sit up. If you decide to abuse the system, people will make reference. So, you count your losses and manage your losses. But for us we are not going to mend it. Today, you see people putting streetlights and insisting on NDDC standard. Whenever I see it I am happy that people can now make reference to NDDC standard. There is one House of Rep member that met me at Heathrow Airport and she was telling me that she wanted to do solar lights and people were telling her that if it is not NDDC standard, it would not work. Those are individual testimonies. It shows that something has changed. The roads we have constructed recently the minister followed us to inaugurate them. The roads were some of the roads handled by contractors that were doing substandard projects. But sometimes you do not blame them. You do not expect the contractor to go to site when the MD has told him that the construct he has given, he must make a return of 20% upfront. Then what money is he going to put? So, now we have moved from transaction to transformation. And our transformation is practical. It is something that even the blind can see. If you want to see it you go and check it. Personally, I go round to check the projects. If we have not been checking some people who have been doing 30 watts because they know that they will pay them. They will make more money and the people will suffer it. So, the reason people are celebrating the NDDC so much it is because they are doing well. We do not choose 80 to 60 watts, we choose 100 watts because we want to give value to our people. Some of these communities have never seen light before. We have people who have stayed in communities for over 50 years they have never seen light before. But today, if you take a boat along our riverine communities you can see the way the lights are in these communities you will be so happy. It is beautiful at night.