Women vow to shut down NDDC over FG’s failure to constitute board, publish audit report

Women drawn from the different states that form the Niger Delta region, under the aegis of Wailing Women of the Niger Delta, have asked the Federal Government to publish the forensic audit report on spending of funds at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and constitute a substantive board within seven days.

The group made the demand yesterday, in a statement signed by its president, Oney Nwadighi, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Nwadighi said: “Should our demands not be met within the period of this ultimatum, as mothers and women of the region, we shall enforce our rights to do the needful, including approaching the court and shutting down the NDDC through lawful means. This injustice must stop. We are no longer at ease because our people have been taken for granted for too long while those we looked up to have let us down.”

The statement reads in part: “The Federal Government should within the next seven days constitute the substantive board of the NDDC including the advisory council, in keeping with relevant provisions of the NDDC Act.

“This demand is with immediate effect because it is provided for in law. We are not anarchists. There is no need for the NDDC to function with tax payers’ and oil money to enrich a few who have connived not to account for the billions of dollars that have kept on accruing to the Commission up till today.

“The Federal Government should immediately comply with the NDDC Act by dissolving the illegal interim management committee and the current sole administratorship structure because they are unknown to law and accountable to only one man.

“We demand the immediate publication of the forensic audit report by the President. It is a public document and the Federal Government owes a duty of transparency, if there must be no secrecy to shield anybody indicted.

“We demand that all the money that has accrued to the NDDC from inception of the interim or acting management, beginning from Prof. Nelson Brambaifa, till date, be brought to account without any mischievous delays.

“This includes especially the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who should account for all the money that accrued under his supervision and those running the affairs of the Commission under him. This is to the effect that they have not accounted for the billions of naira allocated to the NDDC and have nothing to show for it.

“We are aware of the grand plan to sustain the current illegal interim management and sole administratorship structure till the end of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. This will not be acceptable because it is illegal and Mr. President is enjoined to rise to the oath of his office in the interest of peace and justice.”(The Guardian)