Time for agitation over, NDDC tells Ijaw leaders

The Niger Delta Development Commission has called on Ijaw leaders and Niger Delta stakeholders to support the agency in developing Nigeria’s oil-rich region.

 

The Managing Director of the NDDC, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, who made the appeal during a courtesy visit by Ijaw leaders and stakeholders in the region at the agency’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said the time for agitation was over.

 

“We want the world to know that Ijaw people have gone beyond street agitation; we are now involved in intellectual engagements.

 

“The time for agitation is over; this is the time for development. We sacrificed a lot during the struggle for the emancipation of the Niger Delta region. This is the time to turn that struggle into development,” Ogbuku was quoted as saying in a statement by the Director, Corporate Affairs of the NDDC, Ibitoye Abosede, on Friday.

 

The chief executive officer thanked the Ijaw leaders for coming to show solidarity with him and the new leadership in the commission, stating that the mandate of fast-tracking the development of the Niger Delta region must not be compromised.

 

Meanwhile, the agency has declared as illegal the payment of percentages on contract sums and all forms of financial inducements to middlemen who claim to be representing its officials.

 

The NDDC MD who made this known at an interactive session with contractors at the commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, said though contractors were partners in the development of the Niger Delta region, they should resist the temptation of falling victim to persons who claimed to be agents of the commission’s top officials that facilitated payments based on monetary inducements.

 

Ogbuku stated, “You are our partners in the development process. It is a sad situation that we are facing. As partners in the development of the Niger Delta region, we need your cooperation.”

 

The Chairman of the NDDC Contractors Association, Mr Joe Adia, in his remarks, commended the NDDC for initiating the interactive forum, but noted that contractors were “eager to hear when the payment of the debts will commence”.

 

Meanwhile, residents of Idjerhe Kingdom in the Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State, have called on the newly-constituted board of the NDDC to revisit all the abandoned projects sponsored by the agency in the community without further delay.

 

The community maintained that they could only pass a vote of confidence in the new NDDC board if, and when, they saw the board in action.

 

The Ovie of Idjerhe Kingdom, Monday Whiskey Udurhie I, while addressing journalists in his palace lamented that at least five abandoned NDDC-sponsored projects comprising mainly inter-community roads had been abandoned in different parts of his kingdom to the detriment of the residents.