The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has said plans for a Niger Delta Infrastructure and Development Fund (NDIDF) have reached an advanced stage.

Its chairman, Dr Godknows Igali, said the proposed fund will be a professionally governed, capital-market-anchored vehicle designed to mobilise long-term domestic and international capital for infrastructure and economic development in the region.

He said the initiative marked a shift from lamentation over the region’s developmental challenges towards practical investment and wealth creation, noting that opportunities in agriculture, fisheries, tourism, maritime activities, manufacturing and technology were largely untapped.

Igali said existing statutory allocations and intervention programmes have not delivered the scale of transformation required, and that the region needed innovative mechanisms to mobilise additional capital for bankable projects.

“Rather than going into a pity party and embarking on another journey of complaints, what is needed at this time is action, that is strategic, intentional, disciplined and focused,” he said.

He described the fund as a blended-finance platform that would draw resources from Niger Delta residents, multinational partners, diaspora investors and the capital market, to be deployed into transformational projects selected through a transparent, validated process.

Igali said the fund would complement existing development institutions, and would be constituted through a trust deed, with a governance structure including representatives of state governments, private-sector operators and professional fund managers, appointed on a non-partisan basis.

He said the group has consulted private-sector stakeholders and the Niger Delta diaspora, presented the proposal to the South-south Governors’ Forum, adding that it would continue engaging relevant stakeholders. He clarified that PANDEF’s role would remain strategic and facilitative, not operational. (The Nation)