By ANIETIE EKONG

At the recent celebration of the 50th birthday of the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Community (NDDC), Dr Samuel Ogbuku, which I was privileged to witness, one thing stood out: the impact of the Ogbuku-led management of the Commission on the people of the region in the last two years.

At the event there was a general consensus that the NDDC under the leadership of Ogbuku has witnessed a new lease of life and a breath of fresh air for a Commission that has been bogged down by frequent leadership turnover, corruption, contract racketeering, lack of transparency and accountability, lack of corporate governance, shoddy and abandoned projects among others.

Niger Delta is a region that have been ravaged by socio-economic and environmental challenges which had in turn led to youth restiveness, insurgency, militancy and disruptions. NDDC was a direct response to the series of agitations by the people of the region flowing from the deep sense of exclusion, environmental degradation, lack of development, poverty and unemployment facing the region.

A region that lays the proverbial golden egg was left with the destruction of her ecosystem through oil spills, gas flaring, water pollution and other human activities. As a response to these challenges and a chip of bargain for a fair deal in the Nigerian federation, youth agitation became rife. At the peak of it, oil exploration in the region was almost crippled.

The Niger Delta is a region that has contributed so much to the nation’s treasury but got underdevelopment in return. The NDDC which was created to address the developmental challenges in the region became part of the problem. The interventionist agency enriched a few people while shortchanging the majority of the people of the Niger Delta.

Faceless contractors pocketed the money for phantom projects that were never meant to be executed. Year after year, so much money was sunk into the Commission without commensurate result. To put it mildly, NDDC had been a cesspool of corruption and bad corporate governance.

At the 50th birthday celebration of Dr Ogbuku, The President of the Senate, who had been a Supervising Minister of the NDDC, Senator Godswill Akpabio lamented “The commission was a place where contracts were given in hotels, where people would sit down and write names of creeks and names of rivers and allocate humongous sums for desilting and then they would come for payments. Some of them never even visited the rivers, but the papers were all complete and they were paid.”

The despondency before the coming of the Ogbuku-led administration was palpable. The Managing Director at his birthday recounted his very first encounter with President Bola Tinubu before his appointment. According to Dr Ogbuku, the President on seeing him, without even offering him a seat had yelled and railed at him about how the Commission had failed the people of the region and expressed his disappointment with the way the NDDC was being run over the years. At that point Dr Ogbuku said his only wish was for the President to ask him to go and he would have gladly left. The President however said he would give Dr Ogbuku a chance to go and do things differently and bring succour to the beleaguered region.

Indeed this may have proven to be the tonic to set the NDDC on a path to deliver on its core mandate instead of being a conduit for politicians to siphon the resources meant for the collective good of the people of the region. Two years down the line the jury is out. At another meeting with the President, he was full of praises for Dr Ogbuku for the great job he had done in changing the developmental narratives of the NDDC and bringing succour to the region. There has been a paradigm shift from a transactional NDDC to a transformational interventionist agency.

Undoubtedly the Niger Delta has experienced great transformation under the leadership of Dr Ogbuku. A Commission which had produced several billionaires was until four years ago operating from a rented office apartment. It took the directive of the then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Akpabio for it to complete its headquarters complex. Dr Ogbuku has taken a nudge higher. He has initiated a policy that will see all the State offices operate from their own permanent offices. Already he has commissioned the ones in Calabar, Cross River State and Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. Work is going on at a frenzy pace in the other state offices and there is a commitment that before next year all the State offices will be completed.

The paradigm shift has seen NDDC prioritizing legacy projects that will make meaningful impact on the lives of the people. For over 15 years about five Local Government Areas in Ondo South Senatorial District, Ondo State were in darkness because the communities were not connected to the national grid. However in an audacious move the Ogbuku-led Commission completed a power sub-station that has provided electricity to over 2,000 communities across five Local Government Areas built at Ode-Erinje in Okitipupa Local Government Area. This has greatly boosted economic activities and improved the living standards of the people.

There is also the “Operation Light Up Niger Delta” another initiative of Dr Ogbuku that has so far installed solar-powered streetlights in communities across the Niger Delta region. This has greatly improved security in the region, boosted economic activities and address the region’s persistent darkness and reliance on national grid. This aligns with SDG7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG 13 (climate action.) According to Dr Ogbuku “We decided to adopt the clean energy approach, which not only provides light but helps in the fight to mitigate the effects of climate change on our environment. I can assure you that the incidence of crime has reduced in most of these communities.”

The successful completion and commissioning of N10 billion road and bridge project in Ibeno Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State which links 20 communities also marked a significant milestone for the Commission. Senator Akpabio who stood in for President Tinubu at the commissioning of this landmark project was full of praises for the Ogbuku-led Commission.” Congratulations to you the MD together with the NDDC board for being the first board in NDDC since the year 2000 to remain focused, united and inaugurating projects that directly benefit the people of the Niger Delta. This is the first time NDDC is impacting the lives of the Niger Delta people directly,” he said.

From Abia State where the Commission has reconstructed the 23.7 kilometer Ndoro-Ntalakwu road in Ikwuano and Umuahia South Local Government Areas, to Imo State with the reconstruction of the Eziama-Abba-Owere-Nkworji road project to Delta State with the construction of the 24 kilometer Gbaregolor-Ogulaha road the Commission under Dr Ogbuku has rediscovered it’s mission of executing projects that directly impact the people of the Niger Delta region. There is hardly any community in the region that has not felt the impact of the new NDDC.

•Ekong, a public affairs commentator, writes from Abuja.

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