Dike Onwuamaeze
The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has described the decision of the federal government to constitute the Advisory Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to advise the governing board of the commission in accordance with the NDDC Act as contradictory and illogical.
A news release that was issued yesterday by the President of IYC, Mr. Eric Omare, said that inasmuch as the IYC welcomed the initiative by the federal government to comply with the requirements of the NDDC Act by constituting the advisory committee, “we wish to state clearly that the decision in itself is a contradiction because it is illogical for an advisory committee to be appointed to advise the governing board when in actual fact there is no governing board in existence.”
The IYC, therefore, asked the federal government especially the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, which “governing board would the advisory committee advise in the absence of a substantive board of the NDDC?”
Omare said that the proper thing that the federal government ought to have done was to inaugurate the board of the NDDC before constituting the advisory committee that would advise the board.
He pointed out that the inauguration of the advisory committee would not serve any useful purpose in the absence of a substantive board. Consequently, it called on the federal government “to put on hold the planned inauguration of the advisory committee of the NDDC and inaugurate the board of the NDDC before inaugurating the advisory committee.
