I Came Out To Protect Our Daughter, I Will Do It For Every Rivers Citizen – Gov Wike
Governor Nyeson Wike of River State“I came out to protect our daughter and I will do so to every Rivers citizen. That is the oath of office I swore to. It doesn’t matter the political affiliation. We will not allow anybody to destroy Rivers State.”
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, made this statement today, July 16, after he intervened in the alleged police invasion of the residence of a former Acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Joy Nunieh.
The governor’s statement, issued by the state Commissioner for Information and Communication, Paulinus Nsirim, said: “what has happened today is a disgrace. Who knows what would have happened to her if they had gained access to her main room. I went there personally to see things for myself and rescued her.
“She is supposed to testify before the House of Representatives Committee and here we are having armed men wanting to abduct her. Governor Wike
“It is unfortunate and I cry for this country concerning the way things are going. They didn’t have a warrant of arrest but would stormed somebody’s house, in fact, the state Commissioner of Police is not aware.
“So, tell me how something will happen in a state and the Commissioner of Police is not aware. They said it’s the Inspector-General Monitoring Unit. So, we have such a unit taking over the responsibility of crime fighting in a state and the Commissioner of Police is not aware. I can also assume too that the Inspector-General of Police is not aware. He should investigate it.”
Governor Wike called on governors of states that make up the NDDC to ensure that their citizens do not have a hand in the planned abduction of the former Managing Director of NDDC.
“If there is any allegation of crime against her, I will not back her, but you can’t kill her for no established crime. I don’t know who’s responsible, but whoever is behind it should not take Rivers State for granted because we will fight back.
“From what has happened now, I want to say that Rivers State is fully out. Anybody who is responsible for this attempted abduction of our daughter should know that enough is enough.
“They can’t treat her as a common criminal. I am sure that President Muhammadu Buhari is not aware of this.
“All the Niger Delta States should find out if any of their citizens have a hand in the unfortunate incident and call on such people to leave our daughter alone. She is no longer the Managing Director of NDDC.
“The way things are going now, it seems people want to destroy Rivers State and it is unacceptable.
“Using the police to carry out abduction of citizens should not be encouraged. A similar incident had happened in this state before when they wanted to use the same style to abduct a serving judge.”
Help is on the way for private schools, hotels, and road transport workers among others, as the Federal Government had factored them in the stimulus package it has put in place for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises to cushion the effect of coronavirus pandemic.
The National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) has issued a query to the embattled Clerk of the National Assembly, Mohammed Ataba Sani Omolori, for his failure to proceed on retirement. The query is dated today, July 16 and was signed by the chairman of the commission, Ahmed Amshi.
Bother President Muhammadu Buhari and Senate President, Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, have cautioned ministers and other appointees of the President against causing unnecessary frictions between the executive and the legislature.
Corruption in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is getting messier as the acting Managing Director Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei, accused the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on the Commission investigating its activities, Olubumi Tunji-Ojo (APC-Ondo) of corrupt practices.
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to move fast and cleanse the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) of the stinking corruption that has bedeviled it over the years.
The Federal Ministry of Education has said that date is not yet fixed for the reopening of schools across the country, even as it maintained its stand on the postponement of the country’s participation in the final examinations for secondary school students.
Scrap This Bureau Of Corruption Called NDDC, By Fredrick Nwabufo
What is happening in the NDDC is a big whale feast — with indiscriminate and soulless butchering of the agency’s treasury. Nigerians in the Niger Delta asked for development, but they were sectioned to endure pauperisation and the purloining of their patrimony. They asked for guardians of the public till, but they were handed hunters of the common wealth.
The NDDC was established on June 5, 2000 as a response to the agitations of the Niger Delta for development. But despite the huge chest of resources allocated to this commission over the years, it has failed prodigiously to bring the barest minimum of development to the region.
With an annual budget of about N300 billion, the NDDC has nourished the flatulent entrails of the behemoth of sleaze while the region it was meant to take care of atrophied. There is perhaps no agency of the government that has remained unaccountable and opaque with its operations like this commission. The agency is the proverbial ‘’regional cake’’ where governors from the south-south and other interests ogle to take a slice.
The Niger Delta is one of the most disadvantaged regions in the country in terms human, infrastructural and material development. Less than 30 percent of the natives have access to clean water. Poverty blooms in the villages and creeks which are marooned from any form of modernity. The region plods away in illiteracy and disease as basic sanitary system, schools and health care are only a pipe dream.
This is a region which is the breadwinning spouse of the country. 90 percent of the country’s revenue comes from the region. Between 1965 and 2000, Nigeria earned over $350 billion from crude oil – according to the International Monetary Fund. Also, an audit report by Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in 2018 showed that Nigeria earned as much as $677.9 billion in 18 years, between 1999 and 2016, from the sale of crude oil. But why is the country’s goose hungry; raped and tortured?
I must say, the Niger Delta is a victim of its thieving elite who appropriate and expropriate resources meant for the people to themselves. The region must, as a matter of urgency, rejig and nozzle its agitation to the enemies within.
In October 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic audit of the operations of the commission from 2001 to 2019. He said the current fortunes of the Niger Delta do not justify the vast resources that have been funnelled into the commission. He was right.
“I try to follow the Act setting up these institutions, especially the NDDC. With the amount of money that the federal government has religiously allocated to the NDDC, we will like to see the results on the ground; those that are responsible for that have to explain certain issues. The projects said to have been done must be verifiable. You just cannot say you spent so much billions and when the place is visited, one cannot see the structures that have been done,’’ he said.
Really, the president’s decision to audit the NDDC is an intrepid quest. I doubt if any other administration took the initiative to look through the iron shield of the agency’s operations. But I am sceptical about the outcome of this adventure. My reason is simple. The current management of the NDDC overseeing the audit has been alleged to be flunkeys of Godswill Akpabio, minister of Niger Delta affairs, who himself has been accused of complicity in the contract fraud at the agency.
The allegations of Joy Nunieh, former acting managing director of the NDDC, against Akpabio are thick and cannot be discounted. Inasmuch as I think the audit process is already tainted, I believe it should be done still. But I strongly believe we need to reconsider the purpose of the NDDC. It has failed to achieve what it was set up to accomplish.
Do we keep feeding the beast?
Twitter: @FredrickNwabufo