Show of Shame: Restructure NDDC, Sack Onochie, Ogbuku Now, South-south Elders Urge Buhari, Tinubu
South-south elders have sent a passionate appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari, to immediately relive the chairperson of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Mrs Lauretta Onochie and the managing director, Mr. Samuel Ogbuku, for engaging in a public show of shame barely five months after assuming office over corruption-related issues.
The elders also urged the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to as a matter of urgency, revert the NDDC to the structure of the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC, by scrapping the offices of the two executive directors and appointing an executive chairman to function alongside State representatives with clearly defined responsibilities.
In an open letter to outgoing President Buhari and President-elect, Bola Tinubu, titled, “Time to Restructure NDDC, Sack Onochie, Ogbuku, the elders noted the present structure of the interventionist agency was defective from inception, and had fuelled internal wrangling, power tussle and corruption among members of the Board, rendering the Commission ineffective.
“Egocentrism among appointees into successive Boards of the NDDC since its inception had resulted in perennial internal squabbles and power tussles between either the chairperson of the Board and the managing director, or amongst the MD, Executive Director, Finance and Accounts (EDFA) or Executive Director, Projects, EDP. But operating like pirates in power and cutting corners as they battle for prime seats on the looting train, the current managing director and the Board’s chairperson engaged in scandalous exposes and hurling of brickbats within a short span after assuming office, scoring a new low and nauseating narrative of the Commission. Sadly, the battle is all about who will control and loot the resources of the interventionist agency and not how to develop the pauperized oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta”, the letter dated 23rdMay, 2023 and signed by Chief Jolomi Ande and Dr Benedict Akparanta, Chairman and Secretary-General respectively of the Forum, read in part.
Describing recent allegations of breach of financial regulations and counter allegations between Ogbuku and Onochie at the National Assembly as sordid, the elders expressed shock that the two top officials of the NDDC have scored a new low and nauseating narrative for the Commission within a short period of assuming office.
“On Friday, 19th May, 2023, the MD, Samuel Ogbuku and chairperson of the Board, Lauretta Onochie, had a dirty fight at the National Assembly, engaging in sordid exchanges at the Senate Committee investigative hearing on unauthorized spending of the 2021 and 2022 budget of the Commission without approval by the National Assembly. While Ogbuku reportedly accused Onochie of over stepping her bounds by desperately seeking to be a signatory to NDDC’s accounts, she alleged, among others, that Ogboku and the Commission’s management were operating 367 bank accounts all in foreign exchange (FOREX) in breach of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy of the Federal Government, an initiative which requires the operation of a unified structure of Government bank accounts in a single account or a set of linked accounts for all Government payments and receipts.
“Onochie had further accused Ogbuku of increasing the monthly imprest for his office from N4 Billion to N10 Billion, a disclosure that has triggered shock and angst across the Niger Delta. It is pertinent to note that in response to Onochie’s expose on the operation of multiple bank accounts, the EDFA, Mr. Charles Airhiavere who represented Ogbuku at the session, admitted to the operation of four bank accounts.
“Mr President, a few weeks earlier, the NDDC chairperson had publicly disowned a $15 billion memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the management of the Commission and Atlanta Global Resources Inc., a US-based firm. The deal, which was reportedly signed on Tuesday, 18th April, 2023, is for the construction of a mega rail line that would connect the nine states of the Niger Delta region.
“Interestingly, Onoche dismissed the signing of the MOU as not only suspect but dubious, alleging that, “The “US company”, Atlanta Global Resources Inc., has no expertise nor experience in any form of construction, let alone Railway construction. This company is a Management and Export Consulting Firm without known notable Directors”.
“To be sure, the MOU signed for the proposed rail line is a big scam. The NDDC management claims no contract has been signed, but they are more interested in the consultancy for the rail project and feasibility studies from which they will rake in millions of US Dollars into their pockets. We shall not be fooled this time around. Unfortunately, the National Assembly is also hands in glove with them in this heist at the NDDC, collecting huge sums in kickbacks from funds accruing to the Agency”, the letter further read.
The South-south elders alleged that presently, contractors are being compelled to cough out 30 per cent as kick-back before payments are made for contracts already completed and duly certified for payment, while massively awarding “emergency jobs” to line their pockets, just as hosting seminars in Lagos have also become another channel of milking funds instead of holding such events within the Niger Delta, wasting humongous resources which could be used to provide boreholes and primary health care facilities in some communities in the region.
“As we write you this letter, Mr President, the oil producing communities are not benefitting from the Commission and their patience is waning. Engaging in sleazy deals perpetrated in flagrant disregard for statutory regulations is not in tandem with the change mantra of this administration, particularly, your anti-corruption crusade. We therefore urge you to act fast and salvage the NDDC before it is bled into coma. And the first step is to immediately relive Mrs Onochie and Mr Ogbuku, as well as any other Board member found to have acted in breach of the law, of their appointments and replace them with humane, matured, God-fearing, and conscientious individual genuinely committed to the development of the Niger Delta.
“This will lift the people from despair, rekindle hope and create a conducive atmosphere for the President-elect, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to actualise his electioneering campaign promise of economic revival using oil and gas in the Niger Delta as a plank. But for him to succeed, he has to take an immediate and drastic surgical measure on the present faulty structure of the NDDC and correct the anomalies to place the Commission on the right path to enthroning peace and development in the Niger Delta”.
The elders lamented that barely five months after the inauguration of the current NDDC Board, there is a swift atmospheric and emotional drift of oil producing communities from joy to disappointment and distress , triggered by the fact that being a man with global acclaim for impeccable character and integrity, some of President Buhari’s appointees on the Commission’s Board obviously lacked unblemished record of public service, good conscience and character to hold and administer huge financial resources in trust for the infrastructural development and improvement of the lives of the people in the region.
“Ostensibly, Mr President may have been misguided into approving the nominees without due diligence and necessary background checks by the relevant security agencies, amidst desperate lobbies by their sponsors. Reports indicated that while names of members of the current Board were forwarded to the DSS headquarters for background checks on their suitability for appointment, the Senate hurriedly conducted a wishy-washy screening at Committee level and confirmed their appointment without waiting for a security report from the DSS. What was the motivation?
“And it is now glaring from unfolding developments at the Commission that if the Senate had allowed the Department of State Service (DSS) to conduct a diligent background check on the chairperson, managing director and others before confirming the nomination, their character and suitability for the offices they currently occupy would have been placed under intense scrutiny and the emerging show of shame between the chairperson, Mrs Lauretta Onochie and MD, Chief Samuel Ogbuku would have been avoided. Unfortunately, hapless inhabitants of oil bearing communities are now being dressed with the toga of a people who are uncoordinated, disunited and anti-development; engaging in financial malfeasance whenever they are entrusted with public funds for the development of their region.
“The NDDC should revert to the structure of the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), with an executive chairman, secretary and the State representatives driving the process with clearly defined responsibilities, and the oil producing communities directing benefitting from funds accruing to the Commission. The present structure of the NDDC with a non executive chairman of the Board, MD, two executive directors and State representatives had not worked from inception and it is time for it to be jettisoned in the interest of the Niger Delta people. The panacea to enduring peace and stability in the Niger Delta is the immediate restructuring of the NDDC to chart a new roadmap for development of oil bearing and other communities in the region. And this time around, we shall not relent in our efforts at reclaiming the NDDC for it to be refocused for the benefit of our people”.
Please kindly find below full text of the letter:
South-south Elders Progressive Forum
(Ogo-Ivwori, Ekpan, Delta State) 23rd May, 2023
AN OPEN LETTER TO MR PRESIDENTAND THE PRESIDENT-ELECT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA
Dear Sir,
TIME TO RESTRUCTURE NDDC, SACK OGBUKU, ONOCHIE
On 23rd November, 2022, a pall of gloom, suspense and apprehension enveloped the Niger Delta region when the outgoing Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan made public, names of members of the current Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), sent for screening and confirmation by Your Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR. But the people maintained a studied silence and prayed fervently for their fears not to come to reality as the Commission had suffocated for a long time without a substantive Board to enable it operate seamlessly since 2015 till the end of last year, stalling development and heightening poverty in the region.
Barely five months after its inauguration in January 2023, the swift atmospheric and emotional drift of our people from joy to disappointment and distress was triggered by the fact that being a man with global acclaim for impeccable character and integrity, some of Mr President’s appointees on the NDDC Board obviously lacked unblemished record of public service, good conscience and character to hold and administer huge financial resources in trust for the infrastructural development and improvement of the lives of the people in the region.
Ostensibly, Mr President may have been misguided into approving the nominees without due diligence and necessary background checks by the relevant security agencies, amidst desperate lobbies by their sponsors. Reports indicated that while names of members of the current Board were forwarded to the DSS headquarters for background checks on their suitability for appointment, the Senate hurriedly conducted a wishy-washy screening at Committee level and confirmed their appointment without waiting for a security report from the DSS. What was the motivation?
And it is now glaring from unfolding developments at the Commission that if the Senate had allowed the Department of State Service (DSS) to conduct a diligent background check on the chairperson, managing director and others before confirming the nomination, their character and suitability for the offices they currently occupy would have been placed under intense scrutiny and the emerging show of shame between the chairperson, Mrs Lauretta Onochie and MD, Chief Samuel Ogbuku would have been avoided. Unfortunately, hapless inhabitants of oil bearing communities are now being dressed with the toga of a people who are uncoordinated, disunited and anti-development; engaging in financial malfeasance whenever they are entrusted with public funds for the development of their region.
Egocentrism among appointees into successive Boards of the NDDC since its inception had resulted in perennial internal squabbles and power tussles between either the chairperson of the Board and the managing director, or amongst the MD, Executive Director, Finance and Accounts (EDFA) or Executive Director, Projects, EDP. But operating like pirates in power and cutting corners as they battle for prime seats on the looting train, the current managing director and the Board’s chairperson engaged in scandalous exposes and hurling of brickbats within a short span after assuming office, scoring a new low and nauseating narrative of the Commission. Sadly, the battle is all about who will control and loot the resources of the interventionist agency and not how to develop the pauperized oil bearing communities in the Niger Delta.
On Friday, 19th May, 2023, the MD, Samuel Ogbuku and chairperson of the Board, Lauretta Onochie, had a dirty fight at the National Assembly, engaging in sordid exchanges at the Senate Committee investigative hearing on unauthorized spending of the 2021 and 2022 budget of the Commission without approval by the National Assembly. While Ogbuku reportedly accused Onochie of over stepping her bounds by desperately seeking to be a signatory to NDDC’s accounts, she alleged, among others, that Ogboku and the Commission’s management were operating 367 bank accounts all in foreign exchange (FOREX) in breach of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy of the Federal Government, an initiative which requires the operation of a unified structure of Government bank accounts in a single account or a set of linked accounts for all Government payments and receipts.
Onochie had further accused Ogbuku of increasing the monthly imprest for his office from N4 Billion to N10 Billion, a disclosure that has triggered shock and angst across the Niger Delta. It is pertinent to note that in response to Onochie’s expose on the operation of multiple bank accounts, the EDFA, Mr. Charles Airhiavere who represented Ogbuku at the session, admitted to the operation of four bank accounts.
Mr President, a few weeks earlier, the NDDC chairperson had publicly disowned a $15 billion memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the management of the Commission and Atlanta Global Resources Inc., a US-based firm. The deal, which was reportedly signed on Tuesday, 18th April, 2023, is for the construction of a mega rail line that would connect the nine states of the Niger Delta region.
Interestingly, Onoche dismissed the signing of the MOU as not only suspect but dubious, alleging that, “The “US company”, Atlanta Global Resources Inc., has no expertise nor experience in any form of construction, let alone Railway construction. This company is a Management and Export Consulting Firm without known notable Directors”.
To be sure, the MOU signed for the proposed rail line is a big scam. The NDDC management claims no contract has been signed, but they are more interested in the consultancy for the rail project and feasibility studies from which they will rake in millions of US Dollars into their pockets. We shall not be fooled this time around. Unfortunately, the National Assembly is also hands in glove with them in this heist at the NDDC, collecting huge sums in kickbacks from funds accruing to the Agency.
Mr President, Sir, we wish to also draw your attention to the fact that presently, contractors are being compelled to cough out 30 per cent as kick-back before payments are made for contracts already completed and duly certified for payment, while massively awarding “emergency jobs” to line their pockets.
Hosting seminars in Lagos have also become another channel of milking funds the current NDDC Board instead of holding such events within the Niger Delta, wasting humongous resources which could be used to provide boreholes and primary health care facilities in some communities in the region.
As we write you this letter, Mr President, the oil producing communities are not benefitting from the Commission and their patience is waning. Engaging in sleazy deals perpetrated in flagrant disregard for statutory regulations is not in tandem with the change mantra of this administration, particularly, your anti-corruption crusade. We therefore urge you to act fast and salvage the NDDC before it is bled into coma. And the first step is to immediately relive Mrs Onochie and Mr Ogbuku, as well as any other Board member found to have acted in breach of the law, of their appointments and replace them with humane, matured, God-fearing, and conscientious individual genuinely committed to the development of the Niger Delta.
This will lift the people from despair, rekindle hope and create a conducive atmosphere for your successor, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to actualise his electioneering campaign promise of economic revival using oil and gas in the Niger Delta as a plank. But for him to succeed, he has to take an immediate and drastic surgical measure on the present faulty structure of the NDDC and correct the anomalies to place the Commission on the right path to enthroning peace and development in the Niger Delta.
In this regard, the NDDC should revert to the structure of the defunct Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), with an executive chairman, secretary and the State representatives driving the process with clearly defined responsibilities, and the oil producing communities directing benefitting from funds accruing to the Commission. The present structure of the NDDC with a non executive chairman of the Board, MD, two executive directors and State representatives had not worked from inception and it is time for it to be jettisoned in the interest of the Niger Delta people.
Mr President, it is unfortunate that the faulty structural formation of the NDDC had resulted in people from non-oil producing communities being appointed as MD, EDFA, EDP and chairperson of the Board and such appointees have nothing at stake as they mismanage the fortunes of the Commission, while the oil bearing communities are left to bear the brunt of their actions and inactions. Section 12 (1) of the NDDC Establishment Act stipulates that: “There shall be for the Commission, a Managing Director, and two Executive Directors who shall be indigenes of oil producing areas starting with the member states of the Commission with the highest production quantum of oil and shall rotate amongst member states in the order of production”, but this statutory provision had in most cases been observed in the breach.
For example, the current EDFA is from a non-oil bearing community in the upland area of Edo State, just as the EDP from Ondo State. In the same vein, the chairperson is from a non-oil producing area of Delta State. Does it mean there are no competent and qualified persons from the oil bearing communities in these states to occupy such positions? Why do the authorities often appoint people from non oil producing communities, rendering the NDDC non-functional over the years?
Of course, the non-functionality of the NDDC is directly or indirectly affecting international oil companies (OICs) operating in the Niger Delta because they no longer enjoy the support of the oil producing communities who feel not being carried along by the Federal Government and its agencies. So the communities no longer take it as an obligation to protect oil facilities in their areas including fighting crude oil theft.
Consequently, the IOCs no longer complain to the Federal Government on the challenges they face due to lack of cooperation by the host oil communities occasion by a huge trust deficit, and are therefore, simply divesting and exiting the Niger Delta as a result of NDDC’s failure to effectively perform its mandate towards maintaining peace and stability in the region. This is a sad trajectory, a dangerous trend that should not be allowed to slide further and cause fresh agitations.
The panacea to enduring peace and stability in the Niger Delta is the immediate restructuring of the NDDC to chart a new roadmap for development of oil bearing and other communities in the region. And this time around, we shall not relent in our efforts at reclaiming the NDDC for it to be refocused for the benefit of our people.
Please accept the assurances of our highest regards.
Yours faithfully,
For: South-south Elders Progressive Forum
Chief Jolomi Ande Dr Benedict Akparanta
(Chairman) (Secretary-General)