APTI Writes Buhari, Alleges NDDC Spent N1bn to De-Silt Waterways in 3 Weeks

The Act For Positive Transformation Initiative, a civil society organization, CSO, has given details of a new set of expenditures by the NDDC, saying the IMC, headed by Prof Pondei, spent N1 billion within three weeks on de-silting of waterways.

The CSO which testified against the NDDC at the recent public probe of the agency by the House of Representatives, also alleged that Pondei paid himself an imprest of N103million in June and July 2020, while the Director, Projects, Ojougbo was paid N36 million within the same period.

It also said that other members of the IMC staff were paid N9.245million. The new revelations were contained in a letter addressed to President Buhari, dated August 5, 2020.

Head, Directorate of Research, Strategy, and Programme of the CSO, Kolawole Johnson, also rejected the reason recently given by the IMC for delaying the payment of scholarships to Nigerian foreign students under the commission, saying it was a hoax.

Johnson said the payments were delayed because making a direct payment wouldn’t have benefited the management team’s pecuniary interest.

The letter read: “After the death of the late EDFA, additional fraudulent payments have been made to companies that were actively involved in cases of contract scams investigated.

‘’For example, the engineering company that got the fraudulent media consultancy contract for COVID-19 awareness, has received over N400million within same period the management refused to pay the scholars (216,388,449.44 – June 19 and 185,475,813.81 – July 09).

“Your Excellency, in brazen recklessness and defiance to your directive to the supervising Minister to halt payment for desilting, knowing full well that it was a common avenue for looting, the interim management, led by Pondei, has squandered over N12billion under the guise of desilting in three weeks (July 8 to July 28, 2020), against your directives. On July 9, 2020, over N8billion was moved out, largely on desilting.

“These payments were made in a day, the same day the management appeared before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee investigating the allegations of financial recklessness against the commission.

‘’It will interest you to note, sir, that five of the companies that received the fraudulent payment on that fateful day were traced to just one person, meaning an individual received five payments of over N3billion in one day, while hundreds of contractors who were duly awarded genuine contracts are languishing in debt.

“On July 28, the scholars issued a notice to protest across foreign embassies if the management of NDDC refused to attend to their dues. The management under the supervision of Akpabio ignored the threat and paid out over N3.6 billion largely on fraudulent desilting.

“On July 8, same day Prof Pondei received the second tranche of the illegal N51.6m allowance within three weeks, the MD paid himself and other members of the IMC another frivolous allowance. Prof Pondei got N9.887million, while other members got N9.245milion.

‘’The following day, Prof Pondei paid himself N3.2million for appearing before the Senate Ad-hoc committee on July 9. Staff and cronies also benefitted from these bleeding allowances within the period in focus.

‘Nothing good will come out of NDDC probe ‘In its take on the matter, Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, has called on the Federal and Delta State governments to provide adequate infrastructure to the Urhobo nation, even as it called for the provision of adequate security in the region.

The group added that nothing tangible would come out of the ongoing NDDC probe Speaking through its President-General, World-Wide, Olorogun Moses Taiga, UPU said: “I don’t expect anything good at the end of the NDDC probe. It’s just drama because we have seen all this type of thing before, it’s drama.

“It’s a shame that what all our efforts for the improvement of the well-being of people that produce the wealth of this country is being abused.

For us in UPU, it’s not just the NDDC probe, we are calling on President Buhari to swear-in Bernard Okumagba as Managing Director of NDDC as approved by the Senate.

“We are calling for forensic audit of all the projects approved by NDDC since inception. What is the proportion of projects given to indigene of that region to execute? Let us have the list of all people that have taken contracts since NDDC was established.

“The East-West Road has remained uncompleted for over 20 years while Ughelli/Asaba Road, Benin-Sapele-Warri Road among others that need to be completed. “The roads are in states of deterioration, which has led to needless loss of lives, properties, and productive man-hours.

A one-hour journey now takes between three to six hours. For Urhobo people and other Nigerians plying the road, especially from the Ugbenu, Oghara, Adeje, Elumu to PTI junction axis of the Benin-Ughelli expressway, it has been a harrowing experience.

“The Sapele and Warri Ports which were given to the Navy are currently under-utilized and need to be restored back to full operation. The government should develop the Okwagbe/Ganagana port in Ughelli South of Delta State.”

Urhobo youths demand Akpabio’s sack, the inauguration of commission’s board The Urhobo Youth Assembly, UYA, has urged President Muhammadu to sack the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, within seven days.

UYA in a letter to the President alleged that in the past 20 years of existence of the NDDC, no statutory board of the commission had been so reckless and controversial with its finances as the revelation going on now.

The youth group’s letter read: “The entire leadership and members of UYA frawn from the 24 kingdoms spread across the eight Urhobo speaking councils of Delta Central and our Urhobo brothers in Warri South, Bomadi and Patani rose from a crucial emergency national meeting in Ughelli, weekend.

“The meeting was called principally to review the state of the nation via the high powered corruption that has bedeviled the regional interventionist agency, the NDDC under the supervision of Chief Akpabio as minister.”

The UYA resolved, “That the Federal Government should within the next seven days sack the controversial Minister of Niger Delta, Akpabio, and initiate a thorough process of arresting and prosecuting all those who have looted and diverted funds meant for the development of the oil and gas producing communities of the Niger Delta region.

“That it is imperative for the government to know that no statutory board of the NDDC in the past 20 years of its existence has been so financially reckless and controversial like this Akpabio imposed three members kangaroo IMC that is not known to the NDDC Act 2000.”

Group petitions UN over corruption in NDDC The Restore Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, NGO, has petitioned the United Nations, UN to look into the alleged massive corruption in the NDDC.

In a petition by the National Leader of the NGO, Gloria Okolugbo, the group called for the prosecution of indicted persons involved in corruption, explaining that the mismanagement of funds and other resources were gross violations of the human rights of Niger Deltans.

Okolugbo said: “More worrisome to us as non-state actors are the fact that some official’s presently occupying positions in an interim management capacity of the NDDC have very huge cases of graft to answer to and are continuously being found to misappropriate funds.

“Therefore, a corrupt act by one individual official could violate this state obligation. For instance the rights of the ordinary Niger Deltans to housing, education and health care which most of these huge amounts now diverted were meant for have grossly been violated, this is the reason we bringing this before you, the UN, we urge that the rule of law prevail in NDDC, and that everyone investigated and found culpable be made by international cooperation to refund assets and face the consequences of the years of denial and deprivation my people have suffered.”

Ayooluwa Joshua