With NDDC, you can take poverty to the bank

When the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was conceived and birthed in 2000, it was for the purpose of facilitating development in the Niger Delta region of the country. The region, which though is home to the crude oil that gives the nation the bulk of its wealth, has been holding the short end of the stick as it is the poster boy for underdevelopment, environmental degradation and deprivation. Crude oil exploration and oil pollution in the region have foisted on it environmental degradation with the resultant air and water contamination, which has impaired the vegetation as well as the people’s health and vocation.

So, NDDC was established to provide succour by complementing efforts of both the federal and state government in changing the development narrative of the region through the provision of roads, jetties and waterways. It is also expected to facilitate the region’s industrialization for the purpose of creating employment opportunities by concentrating on fisheries and agriculture, which are the core competences of the people of the area, and assisting with the provision of housing, water supply, electricity and telecommunications.

I am not sure whether those who have had the privilege to lead the organisation ever understood it, but the whole essence of NDDC is poverty reduction in the region by improving life and living for the people. All the activities of the interventionist agency are meant to create enough wealth to neutralise deprivation in the region in such a way that the average Niger Deltan is not denied the basic comfort of life.

To achieve the lofty objective, the government put in place measures to ensure adequate supply of fund to the commission. NDDC gets first line deductions from the Federation Account, a portion of the profit of all oil and gas companies operating in the Niger-Delta area as well as statutory contribution by the federal government. According to reports, revenue that accrued to NDDC between 2000 and 2020 is over N3trillion. This money is enough to turn around the fortune of the people and the state of the region.

However, NDDC has turned out to be everything an interventionist agency is not supposed to be. Rather than being a channel of development of the region, NDDC has been turned into a conduit for the enrichment of those who run it. The regional development agency has become a cesspit of corruption. The philosophy underlining most of the projects undertaken by the commission is to deprive and deprave the people. Roads are deliberately built to collapse, not to last. According to the Niger Delta minister, Godswill Akpabio, it is difficult to find a road constructed by the commission that would last two years.  Project completion is deliberately frustrated to siphon funds and the commission’s hierarchy colludes with contractors to defraud it. A NEITI report said about N1,248,911,325 was spent on projects without utilisation which amounted to a waste of resources. Similarly, Senator Akpabio said there are about 12,000 abandoned projects across the nine states of the Niger Delta.

It is quite sad and saddening that the dream of the founding fathers of the commission has been turned into a nightmare. While that is quite painful, the real tragedy is that for as long as the trend continues, development would remain a mirage in the region, while poverty would be escalated and hardship would become a common denominator, especially among the hoi polloi.

The fact is that every naira stolen from NDDC increases the region’s level of underdevelopment and worsens the poverty of the people. Every abandon hospital project takes the people farther from good healthcare and every abandon school building project increases the number of out-of-school children in the region. That is the nexus between corruption and poverty. For as long as corruption holds sway in NDDC, the people would become poorer and the developmental indices of the region would worsen.

So, the question is why would some people who call themselves leaders do this to their own people? What kind of leaders would be glad to see the majority of their people languish in poverty? What manner of people would not seize an opportunity to write their names in gold by doing for the people what would improve their lot but would rather bilk and milk an agency meant to put their own people on the path of growth and development? What manner of leaders would be glad to see the poor get poorer, the sick become more sickly and the uneducated get more ignorant? Why would a people work against their own interest?

It is weird that generation after generation of leaders in NDDC get away with the larceny they commit and the hardship they subject the people to. By now, it should be difficult for anyone who has ever occupied any leadership position in the commission to speak in the public in that region because of the opprobrium they would attract. But that has not happened because rather than being despised, those who have wreaked havoc on the people are celebrated.

It is heartening that President Muhammadu Buhari has instituted a probe into the activities of the commission. This, some people believe, may result in a change of its leadership. But I am of the opinion that unless the Niger Delta people change how they relate with those who steal them blind, a change in the leadership of NDDC would not stop the hemorrhage in the agency and deprivation of the people.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE