The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide has alleged that ministers from the Niger Delta region are responsible for the delay in the formation of the substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The youths’ body alleged that the delay was caused by the power struggle and open display of greed by some unnamed ministers over who becomes the managing director of the commission.
National Spokesman, IYC, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, in a statement on Sunday, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to shun those greedy ministers and politicians and immediately inaugurate the NDDC board.
Ekerefe urged Buhari not to allow the selfish ministers to undermine his efforts in the region as well as frustrate the existing peace that it had enjoyed for sometime now.
He said: “It has come to the notice of the entire youths of the region that those ministers and some high profile members of the National Assembly from the region are engaged in selfish battle over the choice of who mounts the saddle of leadership in the NDDC.
“These politicians are trying to usurp the powers of the President to foist a board that will work for their personal interest and not that of the region”.
Ekerefe noted that the entire Ijaw nation was angry and disappointed at the conduct of those politicians and were ready to unveil their true identities if they did not desist from their evil ways.
He stressed: “Is it not enough that President Buhari has refused to publish the audit report where their names and those of their cronies are evidently visible as part of those who ferried away the development fund voted for the region under the NDDC despite calls from stakeholders to publish the report.
“We are warning them that if they refuse to allow President Buhari set up the board with their unnecessary power tussle, the Ijaw youths will convene an enlarged meeting wherein their names will be read out and necessary sanctions taken against them.
“These anti-Niger Delta elements should stop pooling resources together and wasting time and energy to lobby the Presidency for their preferred choice.
“While we are calling for the appointment of an Ijaw (Bayelsa person to be precise) as a substantive MD of the NDDC, some greedy vultures who live to feed fat in the rot taking place at the commission as a result of their personal greed and interest, are now using the weight of their high profile political appointments to truncate the efforts, all in the suspicion that those who may emerge may not be their loyalists.
“These deviant Niger Delta leaders see the NDDC as their cash cow. They are now bent on doing anything to frustrate the President from appointing a substantive board of the NDDC until their preferred candidates are appointed.
“What we know from investigation is that certain power brokers of the Niger Delta origin, sitting in Abuja have vowed that NDDC Board will never be constituted, because most of those penciled down for the commission’s top job are not within their immediate political embrace and control.
“We, as Ijaw youths, are not happy with the politicisation of the NDDC because it is an intervention agency established with the sweat and blood of our youths to bring development to the region. Over the years, politicians have leveraged their romance with powers at the centre to man the exalted office of MD/CEO of the commission with nothing to show for it.”
The spokesman, therefore, called on President Buhari to write his name in gold in the annals of history to look away from the established trend of ‘godfatherism’ and stooge nomination and appoint into the commission people of character, deep experience, technical know-how and proven record of administration and service.
He said such an appointment would fast track the development of the Niger Delta without undue interference by supposed political godfathers which has been the case over the time.
