"Obey Court Order And Inaugurate NDDC Board"_

Coastal News

**Prof. Benjamin Okaba, President Ijaw National Congress, INC.**

Professor Benjamin Okaba, President of the Ijaw National Congress (INC), the global umbrella organization for Ijaws, has urged all concerned Federal Government Ministers (Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio) to follow the directive of Hon. Justice Isa Dashen of the Federal High Court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, and to “impress it upon the President to immediately put a substantive “The illegality (at NDDC),” he claims, “is not helping the interventionist agency created to address the region’s developmental challenges.”

The Federal High Court in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, issued a perpetual injunction on March 14, 2022, prohibiting the AGF from forming another interim or sole administratorship to handle the commission’s business. “Leave is now given to the applicant to seek an order of this Honourable Court instructing the respondent to dissolve the current sole administrator-ship structure utilized to handle the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC),” the court continued.

Professor Okaba, who spoke as chairman at the Boyloaf Annual Lecture, Launch of the Boyloaf Foundation, and 50th birthday celebration in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, over the weekend, said that Akpabio, who was once quoted as saying, “the appointment of the sole administrator to man the NDDC was backed by court order should display the necessary integrity and due diligence.”

The current NDDC anomaly, according to the INC President, is “despicable shenanigans,” in which the government has been appointing Interim Managements and Sole Administrators to supervise the commission’s affairs without a substantive board since 2019, in violation of the law that established the NDDC.

According to him, the government vowed to establish a substantive board following the commission’s forensic audit, but nothing has happened since the result of the forensic audit was officially delivered to President Muhammadu Buhari on September 2, 2021. “The NDDC is being operated as a cabal’s personal estate, to the detriment of the Niger Delta’s growth.” This is not just indecent, but also provocative.”

Professor Okaba also stated that the Federal High Court in Yenagoa’s recent order prohibiting the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice from subsuming the NDDC under the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs is a “welcome development in the direction of discontinuing the hijacking of the commission by individuals for their selfish interests, unbridled personal aggrandizement, and advancement of their political relevance.”

It is also “gratifying that the Federal High Court granted a perpetual injunction prohibiting the AGF and Minister of Justice, who officially received the forensic audit report from the Minister of Niger Delta on behalf of President Muhammadu Buhari, from further constituting an interim body or sole administratorship to run the affairs,” according to him.

There are already unending calls, demands, and peaceful agitations from youths, men and women, political and traditional leaders, and civil society organizations across the Niger Delta region that the illegality of administering the Commission through the Sole Administrator contraption should end, and the Board should be inaugurated in accordance with the NDDC Act to promote and sustain peace, equity and fairness, transparency, and accountability, good go.

The President’s commitment to inaugurate the NDDC board following the forensic audit has been broken by the delay in doing so. On the 24th of June 2021, while receiving the leadership of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) at the State House in Abuja, President Buhari told the people that the NDDC Board would be inaugurated as soon as the forensic audit report was completed and accepted.

Unfortunately, the report of the forensic audit of the NDDC was submitted to President Buhari by Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, on September 2, 2021, but eight months later, there is growing tension in the Niger Delta region over the delay in inducting members of the Commission’s board of directors. In fact, the Ijaw National Congress (INC) had previously warned that “any additional delay in the inauguration of the NDDC board is a clear betrayal of trust and exhibition of State insensitivity on the Ijaw nation and the Niger Delta region.”

The pan Ijaw group responded with a statement titled “Evil Against The Niger Delta: Enough Is Enough, Mr President,” in which it warned that unless President Buhari takes “prompt action before indigenous cross-cultural and multi-ethnic feelings of discontent reach critical mass and become kinetic, we can do nothing to hold things back.”

The INC is also “fed up with the President’s lackluster approach to the outlined issues,” including “the continued delay of the inauguration of a substantive board for the NDDC,” which he described as “an inexplicable aberration that defies logical reasoning and is infuriating the region,” and “the continued existence of the grossly illegal vehicle of Interim Administration.”

President Muhammadu Buhari should therefore heed the demands of genuine Niger Delta stakeholders, obey the decision of a competent court, follow the law, and end the illegal sole administratorship at the NDDC, establishing the NDDC Governing Board in accordance with the NDDC Act to represent the nine constituent states, and ensuring proper corporate governance, accountability, transparency, and probity in the management of the Commission.