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NDDC was Held Captive by Powerful Forces, says Acting MD

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was held captive by powerful forces but is being liberated, Acting Managing Director Dr. Joi Nunieh said on Wednesday.

She said the Interim Management Committee (IMC) must take hard decisions to reset the commission’s trajectory.

This is as a group, the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET), called for increased security for Dr. Nunieh given the risky job she is doing.

Dr. Nunieh spoke in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, at a sensitisation forum on the establishment of NDDC’s Cooperative Microfinance Bank.

She said: “We have had enough bashing from the people and the media for failing to take the right decisions to put our region and our people first.

“We must brace to challenge powerful forces and systems that have held the commission captive and subverted the core objectives for which the NDDC was established.

“On our part, the IMC will work assiduously with the Presidency, the National Assembly and other key stakeholders to reshape and reposition the commission to service the interest of the region and country.

“The era of using the NDDC as an alternate government in the region is over.”

Nunieh said it was gratifying that NDDC Staff Cooperative, which was formed in 2008, has been promoting commercial ventures and activities that have greatly improved the welfare of its members.

According to her, the microfinance bank was borne from the need to harness the vast, but largely untapped economic potential of the over 1,500 staff of the commission.

It will also provide financial inclusion for many small and medium scale businesses and capture the unbanked active poor in the region, she said.

Nunieh noted that the proposed bank was also intended to complement the various tiers of government’s efforts at poverty alleviation for the poorest of the poor in the Nigerian society.

The NDDC chief reiterated that the contracts verification exercise, which began on January 20, was free of charge.

She said no member of staff was authorised to verify projects, maintaining that the ongoing exercise was meant for contracts verification only.

Nunieh added that contractors, consultants, vendors, suppliers and NGOs that did not turn up for the verification would be deemed not to have legitimate claims and they would not be paid.

President of NDDC Staff Cooperative, Mr Franklin Essien, said the bank would be incorporated as a subsidiary of NDDC Staff Investment and Credit Society Limited, with the name, NDDC Coop Microfinance Bank Limited.

“This implies that the cooperative will always retain a controlling interest of a minimum of 60 per cent of the total share structure of the bank, while the balance will constitute minority interest equity holdings.”

Also yesterday, the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET) urged the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu and the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi, to provide security cover for Nunieh given the risky nature of her current assignment.

In a January 28 letter to the security chiefs by its Director of Strategic Communication, Abiodun Sodiq Babalola, the group noted

that the ongoing forensic probe has exposed Nunieh to security threats.

CESJET said the revelations of corruption made by the Nunieh-led IMC have made her “a target for blackmail and possible assassination by agents of those persons who are afraid that the tsunami of the forensic audit will soon consume them.”

“There was a recent accusation against Dr Nunieh that she parades fake NYSC certificate.

“We make bold to state that this accusation is nothing but a deliberate attempt at smearing her hard reputation and distracting the ongoing drive to recover funds looted from NDDC,” the group said.

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