Any attempt to deny Bayelsa State the right to produce the next MANAGING DIRECTOR of the NDDC will breach the Act establishing the agency and cause restiveness
BY Jonah Okah
In the past couple of weeks, the relative peace secured in the oil producing communities in the Niger Delta has come under threat by increasing worries and palpable tension.
This is arising from what is widely believed to be the constitutional and leadership failure of President Mohammadu Buhari to do the needful by appointing a substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission, an intervention agency created by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to tackle the peculiar development challenges of oil producing communities. In spite of the laudable intention of former President Obasanjo’s administration in this regard, Nigeria have suffered unquantifiable setback and loss between 2007 through 2009 when a new phase of struggle for a fair deal in the region was launched by fierce militancy leading to drastic drop in oil production.
This did not only bend the Nigeria economy to its knees by paralyzing all facets of the nation’s socio-economic lives but also unleashed a regime of insecurity, ranging from kidnapping, pipeline vandalisation to shutting down of oil facilities in pressing home their demand for justice, occasioned by the grotesque neglect and marginalization of the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg.
Thousands of lives were lost in the cause of the struggle. The people resorted to arms struggle because they felt, the only language the insensitive Federal Government would understand is the language of force and violence.
The NDDC was converted to the proverbial cash cow for politicians in funding political activities, rather than using it for the purpose of human capital and infrastructure development. Several phantom projects were created to line up their pockets and for election funding, at the expense of the development of oil producing communities who continue to suffer unimaginable deprivation and environmental degradation.
Gladly, the Musa Ya’ radua administration initiated the amnesty programme to contain the activities of militancy, culminating in the relative peace in the region.
One had thought the Federal Government had learnt some hard lessons and would put in place concrete measures to address the infrastructure deficit in the oil producing areas. In spite of the several appeals to do so by the leaders of the area, it is quite unfortunate, this fell on deaf ears particularly under President Muhammadu Buhari administration, which has continued to sweep under the carpet the genuine demands of oil producing communities.
In the past five years, under the watch of President Buhari, pipeline vandalization and illegal refining are on the increase, while loss of crude oil in billions of dollars are being recorded at a very frightening dimension. Mele Kyari, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, stated that Nigeria loses $1.9 billion every month to crude oil theft.
Kyari made this known during his sensitization tour to governors of oil producing states, along with the Minister of States for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva.
The tour which was essentially to collaborate with the governors and critical stakeholders to carry out sensitization, with the hope of curbing the devastating effects of the activities of pipeline vandals, has brought to fore the need to wield political power to address the Niger Delta region development challenges as the only solution to the problem.
Without being economical with the truth, since the birth of democracy in 1999, there is no administration that was so insensitive like that of President Muhammadu Buhari administration over its lackadaisical and insincere response to the genuine concerns of the people of Niger Delta.
It is evident in all ramifications, that the Buhari administration has as a matter of policy introduced divide-and-rule strategy to undermine the collective dreams of sustainable development in the Niger Delta.
The refusal and unnecessary foot dragging in the exercise of his constitutional power to appoint and inaugurate a substantive board at the NDDC in the past five years points to the deliberate strategy to sow a seed of mutual discord among the oil producing communities.
Several appeals and visits made to make submissions on the need to avoid what it described as the unconstitutional appointment of interim administration or management to manage the affairs of the commission by the leaders of the region have been treated with levity, which is an aberration, not known to the law establishing the commission.
Also, the continued appointment of Acting Managing Director of the Commission in two consecutive times from a section of the region, Akwa Ibom state where the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs comes from negates the principle of fairness and the height of insensitivity to the socio-political configuration of oil producing states in the Niger Delta.
According to the PAN Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, in a statement signed by its leader and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clarke, “It is clear to the Niger Delta people that there is a deliberate plot by the President Buhari led Federal Government to decimate the region by sowing seeds of discord and mutual suspicion among the different ethnic nationalities”. Also, the first report of the outcome of Vice President Yemi Osibanjo’s talk show visit to oil producing states was the report that the Itsekiris were posed to dispute the ownership of Okerenkoko which was never disputed by the Ijaws and Itsekiris before now. This is a classic case of the strategy of divide-and-rule in the region.
Besides that, the divide-and-rule strategy which has become the trademark of the Buhari administration in dealing with the issue of development in oil producing communities is about to take another sad turn of dangerous dimension over where the managing Director and other executive directors should come from.
The fact remains that the law establishing the NDDC rotates the chairman of the governing board of the NDDC alphabetically from A-R among the oil producing states, while the managing director rotates among the four states with the highest oil production quota.
Interestingly, since its establishment in 2000, only four substantive governing boards have been inaugurated, out of which Akwa Ibom has produced two substantive managing directors, Delta has too produced two substantive MDs, Rivers State had also got two substantive MDs except Bayelsa which is the only state that has got only one MD among the four states, which the position of managing director rotates in the alphabetical order.
So the issue of Bayelsa in the line to produce the next substantive managing director is a matter that is evident and should not incur any contention. While the appointment of executive directors is at the prerogative of the President to assign port-folio as he deems necessary.
Therefore, there is no iota of doubt that it is the turn of Bayelsa to have the Managing Director of the NDDC. So, the recent agitation by Ondo and Edo states to have the MD slot is borne out of mischief believed to be instigated by the federal government to sow seed of mutual distrust among the ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta in tandem with the hidden agenda of the federal government to continue to balkanize the people of Niger Delta. The consequences of this divide-and-rule can better be imagined than be told as it is capable to trigger off ethnic crisis with negative concomitant impact in the oil producing companies.
The federal government should simply do the obvious. Now that the stage is set to inaugurate the management and board of the NDDC , any attempt to deny Bayelsa state the right to produce the next MANAGING DIRECTOR of the NDDC will not only breach the act establishing the agency, but will also cause restiveness occasioned by the glaring injustice the presidency is about to perpetrate against Bayelsa State. The unnecessary foot-dragging to inaugurate the NDDC board and the new twist to deny Bayelsa State the right to produce the MD is just an outright display of naked power, arrogance, lack of honesty and will-power to address the contending issues of development in the Niger Delta.
It is pertinent to remind Mr. President that any further crisis that erupts in Niger Delta, he should blame himself, for his failure of leadership to do what is just and fair. Bayelsa has been the epic centre of the agitation for a fair deal in the Niger Delta right from the days of Isaac Adaka Boro in the 60s. The Ijaw man is known for his resistance against injustice which the denial of the MD position will not be different.
It is in the light of this, one is constrained to appeal to Mr. President to avert this glaring injustice that is about to be meted out to the people of Bayelsa State, who are known for their peaceful and lawful conduct over the years.
