NDDC chairman cautions against destruction of oil installations

CHAIRMAN of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, has appealed to militants to stop destroying oil and gas facilities in the Niger Delta region.

He made the plea during a courtesy visit by the Cross River State University of Technology (CRUTECH) Alumni Association at the NDDC Headquarters in Port Harcourt.

Ndoma-Egba, in a statement, issued on Tuesday, by the NDDC Head, Corporate Affairs, Mr Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, appealed to aggrieved people in the region to call a truce because “we are in urgent need of development in the region and it is only in an atmosphere of peace that we can develop.”

He also emphasised that the issues of poverty and restiveness could only be addressed when development was allowed to thrive, noting: “We cannot develop in an environment of militancy.”

Ndoma-Egba said that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had shown good faith by increasing the financial allocations to the development agencies in the Niger Delta region.

“President Buhari has demonstrated goodwill in some of the steps he has taken. If you look at the 2016 budget, there is a marginal increase in everything concerning the region. Allocation to Niger Delta Ministry went up, the budget of the NDDC went up, and the budget of the Amnesty Program went up.

“Now, something is being done with some urgency on the completion of the East-West Road. We have the Lagos-Calabar rail line and recently the vice president, Professor Yemi Osibanjo, visited Delta State and gave very firm assurances that the problems of the region will be addressed urgently,” he said.

The NDDC chairman said the least the people of the region could do was to reciprocate and show good faith by halting the breaches in oil and gas infrastructure, lamenting that such criminal activities were detrimental to the interest of the region, as they were more like “shooting ourselves in the feet.”

Senator Ndoma-Egba acknowledged the importance of education in changing the mind-set of the youths who were sometimes prone to restiveness, adding, “The real resources of a nation are its youths. But the youths remain a resource only if they are educated and skilled to be empowered. If the youths are not educated, skilled and empowered, it becomes a challenge.”

He said that it was, therefore, necessary to get the youths empowered through education, which was what CRUTECH and other institutions were doing.

“One of the mandates of NDDC is to create a regional economy, a proper economy in a secure and peaceful environment. And to advance that mandate, this commission will continue to support tertiary institutions in the zone.

“I want to say that this commission under my leadership will be committed to education in the Niger Delta, so that the youths of the region will be the resource that the nation will depend on,” he said.

President of the CRUTECH Alumni Association, Mr Eyam Abang, told the NDDC chairman that the university was a project of the people and government of Cross Rivers State.

He identified some of the challenges facing the university, especially in the area of infrastructure, and appealed for support for its plans to contribute in addressing the challenges.

In this regard, Abang said the alumni were in the process of building a 500-seat auditorium to help in resolving infrastructural inadequacies in the university.