…. Urges Governors to consider the needs of the citizens before execution of projects

The President and Founder of Citizens Quest for Truth Initiative, a non-governmental advocacy group, Chief Christie Oby Ndukwe, says that the probe of South-South Governors over COVID-19 funds is an effort in futility.

Oby Ndukwe, who recently spoke on Niginfo 92.3fm interview session, urged the governors to consider the need of the citizens before execution of projects.

“How many times have you heard that we had governors holding town hall meetings and bringing people from all walks of life, not select people? How many times have we heard that they are conducting a census house to house, door to door in the rural areas to find out what really the people want?” she queried.

Continuing, she observed that, “the NDDC Act is very clear on the role of the governors, saying it is advisory, neither do they determine, nor are they the ones that will constitute who gets what. It is just advisory.”

Buttressing her position to an inquiry, she made reference to Section 11 (I) of the NDDC Establishment Act which states thus: “There is hereby established for the Commission, a Niger-Delta Development Advisory Committee (in this Act referred to as “the Advisory Committee”) which shall consist of

(a) The Governors of the member States of the Commission; and

(2) The Advisory Committee shall be charged with the responsibility of advising the Board and monitoring the activities of the Commission, with a view to achieving the objective of the Commission.

On her reaction to the statement by the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions that it will extend N6.2 billion Covid-19 palliative fund probe to the nine governors of the Niger Delta, she said governors cannot be probed by the National Assembly over the palliatives given to them by the NDDC because they are protected under immunity, noting that it will yield nothing as long as the report of the probe cannot be implemented.

She however stated that if their mission is to ascertain whether the Governors received funds, medical equipment and food palliatives from the NDDC COVID-19 funds approved by the President, then, the right thing to do is to write the Governors for detailed information to enable the Committee in its probe, even though that issue had been severally discussed and deliberated upon by the two National Assembly Committees on NDDC.

Oby Ndukwe expressed worry that although we have so many probes, at the end of the day, they end in the trash can.

“The reports are not implemented and oftentimes, these probes are just tools for political witch-hunt or sometimes they need some sort of ‘settlement’ from the other party. So they now begin to harass them. Nothing can come out of that probe if at all the constitution allows that.

“I think that the major thing we need to do is to get the law right, get the constitution to be enforced, to be implemented to the letter at any given point in time and forget about this rat-race they are doing,” Oby Ndukwe declared.

Update news