Supreme Council of Niger Delta Forum for Conscience and Development:

A weeping Child of Niger Delta

WHO IS AFRAID OF FORENSIC AUDIT IN NDDC    PART THREE

The Niger Delta has become the third world of poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy. There will continue to be tensions as long as these conditions exist. There arises a great need for a marshal plan and honestly so, for the Niger Delta to raise those citizens who are at the bottomless pit of an economic ladder into the mainstream of economic Security and prosperity, up from slavery. Past managers at Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had operated on the false, sick and evil assumption that they can rip the commission of its entire fund and get away with it. They kept doing this year-in-year-out in active connivance with powerful individuals in Government and the National Assembly.

This is why they have vowed to oppose, truncate and do everything within their means to crucify and rubbish the current Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs whose forensic audit exercise, they fear, is likely to unmask them and their shoddy deals in the commission, completely against the purpose for which the commission was established. In every angle we take a look, we notice the restlessness of those whose hands have been made dirty in their dealings in the NDDC matters, we also notice the discontent of the affluent acquired dirty, in the commission and it appears somehow that Federal Government’s Eagle eye on the commission today is being manipulated away from secure shores for the commission, but rather directed towards old destructive rocks. The forensic audit will definitely unveil how deep and systemic the evil of corruption in the NDDC had been and how it is turning around to confront the exercise.

The Federal Government under the leadership of President Mohammadu Buhari should not be struggling against the preponderant evils that are unveiling in the commission but should fight it clear and square no matter whose ox is gored. When appointed leaders are no longer a true participant in their call to service, when they no longer feel any sense of responsibility to the society they belong, then the content of democracy is conjectured. When the traditions of democracy is degraded and vulgarity is enthroned, when the social system does not build hope but induces peril, inexorably, the citizens have no choice than to pull away from such soulless society and the result is alienation, the most pervasive and insidious development in any contemporary society.

If the federal government succumbs to the negative pressure and dissolves the current management of NDDC, it (Federal Government) will definitely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without voice, might without morality and strength without sight. We must not continue to be silent about the glaring fact that a great population of our elected and appointed leaders have become the greatest purveyors of corruption in every aspect of our national life. They have become some demoniacal destructive suction tubes that have devastated most of the nation’s Ministries, Parastatals, Agencies, Commissions, States and Local Governments ripping them off the finances and funds meant for development.

Those who have had hands in shoddy deals that have stagnated the operational responsibilities of the commission should understand that the tides in the affairs of men hardly remain at the flood, but it ebbs. Even though they cry desperately for time to pause in her passage, sadly enough for them, time is deaf to their plea and moves on. The Buhari administration whose revolutionary mantra is change and war against corruption must not stop short of remoulding the recalcitrant status quo until the status quo is fashioned into repentance. Indeed the Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will no longer be beaten and robbed as they journey through life.

There is anger in the Niger Delta, the despair is growing every day and the bitterness is very deep hence the Federal Government has a responsibility to find an effective answer. Nigerians must honestly admit corruption in NDDC has created a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty in the Niger Delta. It has created conditions that permit necessities to be taken from many to give luxuries to the few opportunists and has advertently encouraged small-hearted men and women in the commission to become cold and conscienceless so much that like dives before Lazarus, they become so unmoved by the suffering, poverty-stricken people of the region.

They are afraid of what is so natural about society, they are afraid the change. We should not underestimate the complex nature of the problems, opposition and the gamut of challenges we have to combat while fighting to disarm corruption in NDDC. If adequate care is not taken, the administration of President Buhari shall fail in its will, courage and insight to deliver a final blow against corruption unless government is prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual revaluation, change of focus which will open our eyes to behold that the things cum claims that seen unreal in the commission are so real and powerful that these realities must be brought under a death sentence.

The government must make a supreme effort to generate the readiness and eagerness to eradicate corruption in the NDDC if indeed the Niger Delta must see development socially, economically, politically and in infrastructure. It appears to us that the best brains that have been saddled with the responsibility of developing the region through the instrumentality of the Niger Delta Development commission into being devoted, over time, to turning the commission into their private estates.

Being a position of a socio-political and socio-cultural organization, Supreme Council of Niger Delta Forum for Conscience and Development jointly signed by Obong (Comrade) Ifot N. Ifot, Chairman and Dr. Duncan Osagie, Secretary-General and could be reached through the following phone numbers: 08098034173, 08113652851