The four-month tenure extension granted to Effiong Akwa as the Sole Administrator of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) may pit Southsout stakeholders against Niger Delta Affairs Godswill Akpabio.
The stakeholders accused the minister of failing to facilitate the inauguration of a substantive board for the commission, following the expiration of the Akwa-led interim managers.
They recalled that when Akwa was appointed in December 2020 as a sole administrator amidst protests, Akpabio promised that his tenure would end in four months, which expired on March 31, 2021.
The stakeholders are: the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF); the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Worldwide, Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationalities (MOSIEND), Niger Delta Youth Movement (NDYM) and the Urhobo Progressive Union (UPU).
According to them, the minister has been using forensic audit to justify the interim management’s continued stay in office beyond April 1, thus ignoring a collective decision on the inauguration of the board to run the affairs of the commission in line with the Act establishing the NDDC.
The Nation learnt yesterday that the various groups plan to occupy major federal roads in the region, including the Eastwest Road in protest against the non-inauguration of the NDDC board.
They also plan to barricade roads and waterways leading to major oil installations in the region during the protest.
MOSIEND’s National President Kennedy Tonjo-West urged President Muhammadu Buhari to take the tension brewing in the region over tenure expiration seriously.
He said: “If the forensic audit was to end by March, how come nobody had heard about a preliminary report at least, how come the Presidency has not gotten the list of board’s nomination from the states.
He alleged of a plan to keep Akwa in office as his appointment letter has no specific tenure.
Tonjo-West added: “The Minister of Niger Delta had it all figured out from the outset. For Joi Nunieh it was NYSC certificate, for Kemabradikumo Pondei, it was court injunction from a Federal High Court. Even when Effiong Akwa was part of the suit, he was singled out for the plum job.
“Even when the court reversed the judgement that Pondei and his term had no case, the minister turned a blind eye to the judgement.”
PANDEF expressed disappointment at the conduct of the minister. It also accused the President Buhari’s administration of “shifting the goal post” on the issue.
It’s spokesperson Rev. Ken Robinson said the group would seek audience with Akpabio to seek clarification on the issue.
He said the group’s position on the matter would be made public after a meeting with the minister in few weeks.
Robinson, however, lambasted the Federal Government for lacking in political will, pointing out that the forensic audit which was to last six months now has an indefinite life span.
He said: “We will seek audience with the minister, so we will give him till April ending. They have been shifting the post. The forensic audit was to be for six months.”
The NDYM issued a 30-day ultimatum over the continued stay in office of NDDC sole administrator beyond April 1.
Its President Joe Jackson said his members will state a mass protest if the failed to inaugurate a substantive board for the NDDC.
He said: “We will mobilise across the nine Niger-Delta States and hold the entire region to ransom until the substantive board is constituted.
“There will be mass protests to press home our demands, we give the federal government 30 days for them to put their house in order or we will shut down the region.”
Leader of (UPU) Youth Wing Worldwide, Kelly Umukoro, said the protesters in Delta State would block the East- West road and the Benin-Onitsha Expressway.
Umukoro said the decision to block major arteries in the region formed part of the resolutions reached at a meeting of the pan Niger-Delta Youth group which held in Asaba, Delta State.
IYC confirmed at the weekend that it had scheduled meetings with civil society organisations and other stakeholders to resume its suspended protests against NDDC.
IYC National spokesman Ebilade Ekerefe said that the national executive council of the group would resume to deliberate on the issue and pick a date to begin occupation of the region based on the failed promises on the April timeline.
Ekerefe said: “We are already in April and we have not heard anything and our people have started asking questions. But we have assured them that the struggle for a substantive board with equal representations of the nine member states in the region is not negotiable and we are taking the minister by his words”.
It was also learnt that the governors and National Assembly members from the region have indicated readiness to back whatever measure that will bring about the appointment of a substantive board as provided under the NDDC Act.
