With its new Managing Director, Mr. Nsima Ekere, the Niger Delta Development Commission is certain to get back its groove. Shola Oyeyipo writes
When former President Olusegun Obasanjo conceived the idea of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as an interventionist agency in 2000, its sole mandate was to develop the oil-rich Niger Delta region of the country. The NDDC is therefore a child of necessity created to respond to the demands of the people of the region.
Among the core responsibilities of the NDDC are the formulation of policies and guidelines for the development of the Niger Delta area, and this is spelt out in such bits as conception, planning and implementation, in accordance with set rules and regulations, of projects and programmes for sustainable development of the area.
These development agenda include transportation (roads, jetties and waterways), health, employment, industrialisation, agriculture and fisheries, housing and urban development, water supply, electricity and telecommunications. It is also to survey the region in order to identify measures necessary to promote its physical and socio-economic development.
The commission also has as parts of it tasks, preparation of master plans and schemes designed to promote the physical development of the region, implementation of all the measures approved for the development of the region by the federal government and the states of the commission.
It is also to address ecological and environmental problems that arise from the exploration of oil, advise the federal government and the member states on the prevention and control of oil spillages, gas flaring and environmental pollution as well as liaise with oil mineral and gas prospecting and producing companies on all matters of pollution, prevention and control among several others.
However, most of the strongly opinionated personalities from the region and outside have a near consensus in the perception that the commission has not achieved the objective for which it was set up.
For instance, renowned Niger Delta activist, Miss Annkio Briggs, has always maintained that the NDDC and Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs have both failed to achieve the essence for which they were established and her argument is predicated on the number of abandoned NDDC projects littering the region.
Briggs’ views are shared by the likes of former Senate President David Mark and former President Goodluck Jonathan, who once regretted that nothing on the ground could justify the huge amount of money the federal government had so far spent on the Niger Delta Development Commission.
Jonathan, who is of the Niger Delta extraction, said since he bears the brunt of the failure of any government agency as the Commander-in-Chief, he would start to clinically look into the commission’s books with a view to ensuring that those in charge did not depart from the conventional and acceptable way of managing resources of the people.
“From three per cent to one intervention or the other, if you aggregate the total amount of money the federal government has spent on this agency, it is enormous and I don’t believe on the ground that we have something to show very clearly”, Jonathan had said.
His concern, as most other Nigerians was further corroborated by last month’s position of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) which stated that between 2007 and 2014, a period of seven years, the NDDC got $1.98 billion and N594 billion remitted to it, but could not account for how N7.4 billion allocated for grassroots development projects was spent.
According to records, since its inception, the commission has awarded 8, 557 projects of which 3, 424 projects have been completed and handed over to communities and states while there are 2, 257 on-going projects and 2, 506 yet to be started for various reasons.
Thus, as Mark succinctly put it, the NDDC had been turned into a goldmine for some people and that is the more reason why all eyes have been on successive leaderships of the commission, particularly, the incumbent Managing Director, Mr. Nsima Ekere, who many had waited to see how he hoped to get the agency to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the people.
Ekere, 51, came on the NDDC saddle with a reputation as an entrepreneur and innovative thinker with requisite knowledge in Estate Management. He studied Estate Management at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, graduating in 1986. He built successful businesses and acquired important national and international experiences in urban and regional planning, oil and gas, power and construction. He served briefly as deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State between May 2011 and October 2012 before resigning on personal grounds.
In picking the NDDC job, the task before Ekere was how to put his more than 27 years of public and private sector experience, with 19 years spent in top management positions working cross-functionally in a variety of challenging projects across various economic sectors into addressing the problems preventing the commission from achieving its set objectives.
When he addressed the recent fifth Niger Delta Dialogue in Port Harcourt, where he spoke on the theme: “Assessment of NDDC’s Successes and Shortcomings to Date”, Ekere, who did not pretend to be oblivious of the problems facing his commission, reechoed how his leadership intends to reposition the agency and actualise the dreams of its founding fathers.
According to him, “The new board of the NDDC is committed to tackling the root causes of the numerous challenges besetting the commission and by extension, the Niger Delta region.
“After a careful review of the issues, we are implementing what we call the 4R strategy which consists of the following components: Restructure the Balance sheet which currently has about N1.2 trillion worth of on-going projects; reform the governance systems to ensure that as an organization, we comply with extant rules and regulations and prevent mistakes of the past from recurring; restore the core mandate of the commission by ensuring we have a properly prepared set of Master Plans for the nine states, and reaffirm our commitment to doing what’s right and proper.”
Though he noted that the goals are “ambitious” and that the time at his disposal “is limited”, he expressed the confidence that the right first steps had been taken and that his team will remain focused on set objectives.
“The reforms planned will also affect how we prepare our budget to ensure we are able to deliver high impact social welfare programmes that really touch the people and help us change the present negative narrative.
“Specifically, we shall collaborate with our stakeholders including the federal government, National Assembly, state governments and LGAs of the region, and most important, the oil and gas firms, who directly fund our budget. For this later group, we shall deliver interventions in host communities that address their specific needs.”
Good as these may sound, just as in the larger Nigerian society, if Ekere must achieve his desired goals, he must tackle the problem of corruption that has attained an endemic dimension in the NDDC and that exactly is what he has been doing. But it is not without a fight. In fact, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, over 100 militants disrupted the inaugural sitting of a six-man investigative panel set up by the management of the NDDC in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
The Ekere leadership had set up the investigative panel, chaired by Dr. Ekanem Princewill, Director, Special Duties in the office of the Managing Director, to hear and unravel cases of allegations of corruption and racketeering concerning the commission but the hoodlums beat the security arrangement at Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt venue of the panel’s meeting, and made their way forcefully to the inaugural sitting, forcing members of the panel, contractors and journalists to abandon the hall and run for their lives.
Not deterred, the NDDC has vowed to complete the investigation and unearth those behind alleged corruption in the commission. Ekere has maintained that under his watch, the NDDC will adhere strictly to due process and not consider political patronage as a criterion for awarding contracts. He also promised to be frugal with funds.
“We will take measures to safeguard the funds expended on projects. When contractors claim to have a capacity they don’t have, they give the NDDC a bad name. Henceforth, projects will no longer be awarded as political patronage. With measures being put in place, such incidences will not happen in the new NDDC. We will invite the full weight of the law on erring contractors,” Ekere stated during a working visit to Ondo State last month. Continuing, he said “When we convince ourselves that we have not done well, then we can take off from this point.”
For many, the Commission is a failure. And the major challenge before the new board is how to turn things around. The new board must work to win back confidence of people of the Niger Delta on the commission.
Attesting to the previously pathetic state of affairs in the NDDC and the relative improvement in how contracts are now being awarded, a politician and registered contractor with the commission, Mr. Gabriel Jaja, said in an interview that “Ethics governing the award of contracts in NDDC has been thrown into the dustbin. Look, I am a registered contractor with NDDC, during this period nothing is happening in that commission rather than corruption. Contracts were being sold outright to the public after they have finished selling it to their brothers and sisters.
“I am not saying it to destroy the image of anybody, but that was part of the findings of the probe committee, they also discovered that qualified and registered contractors beg for contract from the staff of NDDC not permitted to lobby for contract. Most of the contractors have been with NDDC for many years yet they cannot get direct contract except the one already awarded to others.
“In fact, brothers and sisters of the staff of NDDC move around with letters of award of contracts and they sold them on the streets. However, this has somehow reduced, compared to two years ago. I can say we have better NDDC today compared to yesterday.
During this period I am telling you about, if you go to any Niger Delta states, you will see a poor man in possession of letter of award of contract worth millions of naira. If you don’t know the game, you will think the man is a 419. He is not, it is happening everywhere in the region and if you take such a man serious, he will turn around your life. They are staff, brothers and sisters or political friends of those in NDDC. They don’t have company or registered business name but contracts were being awarded in their names and they sell it.”
There is no gainsaying that Ekere has a lot on his hands especially that Nigerians are watching to see how he would get the commission back on the track. But truth is, he must take heed of the advice of a keen watcher of his fast growing political fortunes, Osondu Ahirika, who said “Ekere must be wary of those, who will suddenly flock to him with the ‘come and chop mentality’. They will start selling political proposals to him and of course, some will want to play the sorcerers, picking political battles for him.”
