NDDC Reiterates Resolve to Complete Abandoned Legacy Projects in Niger Delta Region

Omon-Julius Onabu, Blessing Ibunge inAsaba and Sylvester Idowu in Warri

Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, has restated the commitment of the interventionist agency to continue to partner donor agencies and major stakeholders across the Niger Delta region with the resolve to target the completion of abandoned legacy projects that would serve the people of the Niger Delta region.

Ogbuku, at a press conference in Asaba on Monday, as part of activities to kick start the NDDC’s 25th anniversary celebration, said the commission was also fired up to also take some more new projects.

“We felt we needed to balance between completing old projects and also carrying out new projects. So also looked at new projects that also make meaning to the people on the Niger Delta.

“And we tasked ourselves that whatever project we start let us be sure that we are going to finish those projects. So, a few of those projects were the projects that you saw us commissioning this year”, he said.

Ogbuku disclosed the commission had come up with the policy of transiting from transaction to transformation adding, “When we say transiting from transaction to transformation, this is actually built on the basis of the renewed hope agenda, because we believe for NDDC to progress faster, we needed a lot more of transparency, and transparency is what brings about probity and accountability. We look at those areas where we are failed.

“We have to look at our contracting process, our procurement process, first thing first; that is one area where people have accused NDDC in the past. We decided to digitalize our procurement process by ensuring that nobody can fit our award letter.

 “Today, if you have the NDDC award letter, you snap the backward, you will know that, yes, nobody can come back to you to say, I gave him fake award. We decided to sanitize every process that was actually giving NDDC a bad name, starting from procurement; we digitalized that”, he added.

Ogbuku, who also used the opportunity to highlight the institutional reforms and the successes recorded by the commission under his leadership, stated that the NDDC, poised to sanitise the commission in different facets, has transited from transaction to transformation to better the lives of Niger Delta people.

“We signed a performance bond during our retreat in Ikota to ensure that, yes, there is an agreement between the Board and Management and the President. Under that guidance, we decided to go to work.

“What did we do first? Having gotten the directives from the President on what we need to do and spreading the renewed hope agenda in the Niger Delta, we decided to engage the stakeholders.

 “We met with Chiefs, traditional rulers, leaders of the region. We met with youths; we met with women, trying to pick their brains and getting their thoughts on what they think we should do as a new board and management that will really befit what the Niger Delta people deserved”, he added.

Asked whether he had any ambition to contest for any future elections, Ogbuku said he had not told anyone that he would go that way noting that the only ambition he had for now was to work for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.