Ondo oil producing communities disown forum over NDDC post

The oil producing communities in Ondo state on Friday dissociated themselves from a forum that is agitating for the picking of a managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) outside the state.

The communities condemned the “baseless group” for canvassing injustice against the state it claimed it was representing.

Speaking on behalf of the communities, the Association of Oil Mineral Producing Communities Ondo State (ASOMPCOS), said Ondo state as the fifth oil producing state in the country is constitutionally entitled to the post.

The Chairman of ASOMPCOS, Lepe Pius, said a story credited to one Agbelusi Abiodun who claimed to be speaking on behalf of a forum that is not existing in Ondo state, was not only a ruse but baseless.

He said the forum had canvassed that the injustice that has characterised the rotation of the positions of the Chairman and  Managing Director of NDDC among four of the member states of the commission should continue and be sustained.

ASOMPCOS however said, “For the records, the NDDC act section 12 (1) states that ‘there shall be for the commission, a Managing Director and two Executive Directors who shall be indigenes of oil-producing areas starting with the member state of the commission with the highest production quantum of oil and shall rotate among member states in order of production’.

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“Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, have taken their turns and have also occupied the position twice leaving out Ondo state, who has not occupied the position at anytime, despite the fact that from inception, Ondo state has  occupied the fifth position on the membership list of the oil producing states in Nigeria, and has remained on that position till date. By right of turn that is conferred on it by the act quoted above, Ondo state has a  legitimate right to the said position of Managing Director this time around”.

The communities said it was shocking that an “unknown body that had never intervened on behalf of the people of the oil producing communities in the time of their challenges in Ondo state, whose none of its members is known in our communities nor their name mentioned anywhere in the state before this hatchet assignment and whose interest is in the pecuniary benefits he expects from his sinister paymasters, will drum a newspaper support for Delta state to occupy the position of Chairman and also occupy the position of the managing director of NDDC at the same time.

“We consider his position as self-seeking, mischievous and meant to service the course of injustice that has been done to Ondo state overtime. We are constrained to conclude that the hatchet job is done for pecuniary gain.

“Apart from the fact that the forum is a ruse, non-existing and at best hurriedly formed to achieve a narrow interest of some self-seeking anti-Ondo state folks, the fellow that arrogates the leadership of the said “book association” to himself is by his action not an indigene of Ondo state and we have so established that he is from Ekiti state.

“Though we are shocked by the utter lies and an incredulous attempt made by the fellow to canvass injustice, we are confident that the government of president Buhari is an administration that prides fairness, equity, uprightness and truth in all the dealings, policies and intents of the government. We are therefore pacified by the fact that the untruth in the story and their attempt to perpetuate injustice shall bow to the insurmountable fortress of truth and equity that drive the policy and conduct of the present administration.

“We, therefore, hope and belief that when next the board of NDDC will be constituted, Ondo state shall take its turn of the headship of the commission. Only then will justice have been seen to be done”.