Probe The NDDC And
Scrap It!
By
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
scruples2006@yahoo.com
My first encounter
with their full page adverts was in the Daily Independent
of Wednesday, May 7, 2008. A faceless group, no doubt, but the name
they had chosen to call themselves, “Patriotic Niger Delta
Mothers,” was very emotive, and not very easy to ignore.
We know it as truth
that in Africa, any time mothers decide to cry out on any issue, it is
always difficult to deny them an ear. It is even possible that the
people behind the group were men, and their intentions less-than
noble, but by choosing to pass themselves off as not just women, but
“Patriotic Mothers,” they were able to attract to themselves and the
message they were propagating large doses of attention.
I only saw a few of
their publications, especially, those published on Wednesdays – the
day my Wednesday back-page column appears in Daily Independent.
I have not even had the time to read everything they had to say. But
from the very first publication, it was clear that their target was
the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). They were worried that
the fire of probes raging across the nation was yet to engulf the rich
ambience of the NDDC.
“Why has the National
Assembly failed to look [at the NDDC] as they continue to probe the
past and present activities of government officials? … We are tempted
to break our silence as concerned mothers of the Niger Delta … We
challenge them to begin a probe of the NDDC now. We challenge them to
call for the records of the NDDC today. We weep everyday [and] groan
and mourn that the leaders and operators of the NDDC have been a
bundle of disappointment to us all. Let us sound this note of warning,
that if in the next 30 days, the National Assembly fails to carry out
this probe, we will match to Port Harcourt naked and beat our breasts
for them,” the Patriotic Niger Delta Mothers declared on
May 7. But on May 19, they changed the venue of their proposed nude
protest march and threatened to “to storm Abuja naked to beat our
breasts for our sons in the National Assembly, or in the ICPC, and the
in the EFCC if they fail to begin the probe before June 6, 2008.” In
yet another publication, they announced June 2 as the day they would
parade their nakedness in Abuja .
Well, both June 2 and
6 have since passed, and no one saw any ‘patriotic naked mothers’
anywhere near Abuja or even Port Harcourt. Perhaps, they would want us
to believe that they were dissuaded by the professor fellow who had in
a full page advert on May 8, 2008, appealed to them not to debase
“womanhood just because they want(ed) the Federal Government to probe”
the NDDC.
The NDDC could not
resist the temptation to join the high drama. A certain Chijioke
Amu-Nnadi, a staff of the Commission who lays claim to a “21-year
experience in journalism and associated media work” also took pages in
the newspaper (at whose expense?) to publish the photographs of the
“shack somewhere in Warri” which, he claims, the group had passed off
as their address and argued that there was no way “the millions” used
in funding the campaign for the probe of the NDDC could have flowed
from that symbol of abject poverty and criminal underdevelopment in
the Niger Delta, that is, the shack at 225 Sapele Road, Warri.
Perhaps, unknown to
him, the photographs he published may have achieved only one thing,
namely, to once more remind men and women of conscience of the
unspeakable penury and deprivation ravaging the majority of Niger
Delta people as their land and waters are irremediably ruined in the
process of extracting oil from there to enrich other lands and feed
the greed of the Nigerian political elite. What an irony! Mr.
Amu-Nnadi also accused the group of revealing “in a stupid, almost
unintelligent manner that they are after one man only: Mr. Timi Alaibe,
the Managing Director/CEO of the NDDC”, whom he described as “one
of the kindest and most hardworking persons” he had ever met.
Now, I don’t know Mr.
Alaibe beyond the fact that he is NDDC boss who, it would seem, avoids
the limelight, until perhaps, lately, when he stepped up his media
appearances to show off some projects he claims the NDDC had been
embarking upon. But he has a beautiful and fashionable wife, Alaere,
who for sometime was the toast of society tabloids and
Celebrity/Fashion pages of newspapers.
Mr. Alaibe was at
some point touted as a governorship candidate in Bayelsa State, but
was, reportedly, asked by his alleged godfather and PDP’s former
Emperor, ex-president Obasanjo, to step down for the current governor.
You know the PDP way, don’t you? But if we are to accept the
suggestions that the current media war is all about politics, then Mr.
Alaibe may be oiling his machines and famed formidable war-chest to
storm Yenogoa in 2011.
Now, I do not agree
with the Patriotic Niger Delta Mothers that the billions of naira owed
the NDDC by the Federal Government should not be released to the
Commission. Such a call can only reduce the point of their whole
advocacy to mere elite squabbles and vain power game. If accepted by
the government, such a measure would hurt the people more than even
the NDDC Management.
But their demand for
a thorough and comprehensive probe of the NDDC is in order, and has my
full support.
And for a Commission
which we are told conducts its affairs in an open and transparent
manner, there should no reason such a call should give anyone the flu.
Moreover, Mr. Alaibe is not the only Managing Director that has
piloted affairs at the NDDC, nor does he alone constitute the
Commission’s Management, so why should such a call by stakeholders
(even if faceless) be reduced to an anti-Alaibe campaign?
Now, the claim by
this group that the Commission has so far received N3.8 trillion and
spent N20 billion just to facilitate “the development of the Master
Plan” may not be true, but in a country where people are always
ready to believe the worst about their government and its agencies, no
amount of explanations by NDDC or even a lawsuit (as was threatened in
one of the publications) can convince anyone otherwise. The Federal
Government should therefore seek to restore credibility to the
Commission by probing its activities and making its findings public.
The Management, if at all it cares about its reputation, should even
be pushing for the probe.
But beyond the
controversy and probe fever is the serious question about the
desirability of such bodies like the NDDC, which, if one must say the
truth, are mere tokenisms set up by the resilient exploitative and
oppressive ruling class to pacify their conscience that they are doing
something to alleviate the untold sufferings of the criminally
exploited Niger Delta people. Several times during our Editorial Board
sessions at The Independent, my colleagues and I have
argued that what the Niger Delta needs is not such palliatives and
handouts like the NDDC (which could be hijacked and converted to a
conduit pipe for siphoning public funds), but a comprehensive
Development Plan, in fact, a Marshal Plan we called it (thank God,
President Yar’Adua has also picked up the phrase – although one still
doubts that he has the slightest idea what it really means), which
would not only transform the region and give it a status appropriate
to it as the exclusive source of Nigeria’s petro-wealth, but also turn
it into a massive industrial hub, where the various gas resources
there could be deployed to build petro-chemical and ancillary
industries that would not only drive the economy of the entire
nation, but the whole West African sub-region, and give Nigeria the
status it truly deserves in the comity of nations.
This is the very area
that produced the wealth that built virtually all Nigeria’s modern
cities, yet it is still dominated by such squalid shacks as the one
the NDDC journalist had bruised our consciences with. Before NDDC, we
had OMPADEC which was known for the massive corruption and profligacy
that allegedly flourished there. Now, the NDDC is here, and cries of
discontent and benumbing allegations of massive graft are still all
over the place.
Only recently the
Rivers State Governor, Mr. Chibuike Amechi, lamented that his state
has yet to benefit anything significant from the operations of the
NDDC. And he, certainly, is not the only governor feeling this way.
What all these demonstrate is the inadequacy of the NDDC to scratch
the Niger Delta problems, but before it is scrapped, the people need
to fully know how even the token was managed. And so, the call for
its probe must be heeded, and acted upon without further delay.
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