Ijaw Youths cutting across the nine states of the Niger Delta region have accused ministers from the region over the delay in the constitution of the substantive board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
According to the Ijaw Youths under the umbrella body of the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) worldwide, the delay is caused by the power struggle and open display of greed by the ministers on who becomes the Managing Director of the Commission.
The IYC Worldwide, in a statement issued in Yenagoa, by its National Spokesman, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to shun these greedy Ministers and politicians and immediately set up the substantive board of the NDDC.
ATTENTION: Click “HERE” to join our WhatsApp group and receive News updates directly on your WhatsApp!
Ebilade tasked Buhari not to allow the selfish ministers to undermine his efforts in the Niger Delta as well as frustrate the existing peace that the region had enjoyed for some time now.
Read Also: IYC Issues 7 Days Ultimatum to DESOPADEC Over Commissioner’s Oppressiveness
According to Comrade Ekerefe, “it has come to the notice of the entire youths of the region that these ministers and some high profile members of the National Assembly from the region are engaged in selfish battles over the choice of who mount the saddle of leadership in the NDDC. These politicians are trying to usurp the powers of the President to foist a board that will work for their personal interest and not that of the region”.
Ekerefe noted that the entire Ijaw nation is angry and disappointed at the conduct of the politicians and are ready to unveil their true identity if they don’t desist from their evil ways.
“Is it not enough that President Buhari has refused to publish the audit report where their names and that of their cronies are evidently visible as part of those who ferried away the development fund voted for the region under the NDDC despite calls from stakeholders to publish the report?
“We are warning them that if they refuse to allow President Buhari set up the board with their unnecessary power tussles, the Ijaw youths will convene an enlarged meeting where their names will be read out and necessary sanctions served them.
“These anti-Niger Delta elements should stop pulling resources together and wasting time and energy to lobby the presidency for their preferred choice.
“While we are calling for the appointment of an Ijaw (a Bayelsan to be precise) as a substantive Managing Director (MD) of the Niger Delta Development Commission, some greedy vultures who live to feed fat in the rot taking place at the commission as a result of their personal greed and interest, are now using the weight of their high profile political appointments to truncate the efforts, all in the suspicion that those who may emerge may not be their loyalists.
Read Also: Power Rotation Needs To Be Clearly Stated in The Constitution – Shehu Sani
“These deviant Niger Delta leaders who see the NDDC as their Cash-cow, and are now bent on doing anything to frustrate the president from appointing a substantive Board of the NDDC so long as top management officers, especially the MD, would not be stooge or pawn nominated by them to continue their siphoning of the Commonwealth of Niger Delta people and to fund the machinery of their 2023 political ambitions.
“What we know from very reliable sources is that, certain power brokers of the Niger Delta origin, sitting in Abuja have vowed that NDDC Board would never be constituted, because most of those penciled down for the Commission’s top job, are not within their immediate political embrace and control.
“We, as Ijaw youths, are not happy with the politicization of the NDDC, because it is an interventionist agency established with the sweats and blood of our youths to bring development to the region, but over the years, politicians have leveraged on their romance with powers at the Centre to man the exalted office of MD/CEO of the Commission with nothing to show for.
‘We therefore call on the president to right his name gold in the annals of history to for once look away from the established trend of god fatherism and stooge nomination, and appoint into the Commission, people of Character, deep experience, technical know-how and proven track record in administration and service that will fast track the development of the Niger Delta without undue interference by supposed political godfathers which had been the case overtime”, the IYC spokesman said.
