THE Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, is easily one of the most corrupt organs of the Federal Government.

Established on June 5, 2000 by the President Olusegun Obasanjo regime, it was meant to be a special intervention to assuage the militant agitations through rapid development and engagement with stakeholders in the oil-producing communities.

Responding to the rising complaints of corruption and abandoned projects, President Muhammadu Buhari on October 17, 2019, announced that he had set up a forensic audit to probe activities of the Commission from 2001.

Since then, it has officially been confirmed that 13,000 projects have been abandoned after the contractors collected Mobilisation fees or even full amounts.

The president has also affirmed that since its establishment, over N6 trillion had been budgeted for the Commission.

Apart from the forensic audit, the House of Representatives mandated its Committee on the NDDC to investigate allegations of financial misappropriations in the agency in July 2020. That probe, conducted on live broadcast, was filled with drama.

The Chairman of the probe, Thomas Ereyitomi (PDP, Warri Federal Constituency) frantically struggled to stop the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, from his efforts to expose members of the Committee who were beneficiaries of the financial sleaze in the Commission.

To top it all, then Acting Chairman of the NDDC, Professor Daniel Pondei, dramatically “slumped” while being grilled. On that note, the “probe” ended, and nothing else has been heard of it.

Also, not much has been heard of the details of the presidential audit. All that the president has done is to appoint one interim committee after the other.

After Pondei’s conduct at the probe, Buhari appointed Effiong Okon Akwa as the Interim Administrator of the NDDC.

Akwa recently claimed that the “can of worms” uncovered by the forensic audit is being “treated”. Our questions are: why are the reports of the forensic audit and House of Representatives probe panel being shielded from the public? Whose interests are the legislative and executive arms of the Federal Government serving by these unacceptable concealments? How can the Federal Government deign to “implement” such an important report without letting the public see its contents?

We call on the Buhari government and the House of Representatives to immediately publish the reports of the audit and probe respectively.

The public has the right to know how the over N6 trillion was spent, those behind the thousands of abandoned projects as well as those who pocketed sums meant for the development of the oil-producing region.

Failure to publish these reports will portray the Buhari administration as being complicit in the looting of the NDDC. Publish these reports now, and swear-in the Commission’s Board.

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