Some stakeholders in the Niger Delta dare President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on the recently reconstituted board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) reports AKANIMO SAMPSON in Port Harcourt.
Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), a socio-political group operating in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s main oil and gas basin, is spoiling for war against President Goodluck Jonathan. Analysts say the battle is akin to the Matador Vs the Bull’s. The bone of contention is the reconstituted board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The federal government reconstituted the board following recommendations of the Steve Oronsaye panel. The panel was set up by government to probe the immediate- past board headed by retired Air Marshal Larry Koinyan. It turned in a damning report indicting the management and board of negligence and financial infractions.
But spokesman for the group, Mr. Inemo Semiama believes the membership of the new board leaves much to be desired adding that majority of the appointments appear to repeat the mistakes of the past. He said politics triumphed over reform at the interventionist agency as far as the selection process was concerned.
According to SDN, ‘’those seeking reform at the NDDC will likely be profoundly disappointed by the calibre of the new directors and people in the key management positions. The new Managing Director (MD), Chris Oboh, comes from the middle ranks of Agip Management, an Italian oil major. It is still doubtful whether new MD has the qualification and capacity to reshape a deeply troubled organization with 1300 staff and a 2010 budget of $1.6 billion.’’?
Oboh was the best man at Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi’s wedding while the board is peopled by political jobbers.
For the protesting group, the risks are obvious. In the past, the NDDC functioned primarily as a patronage channel dominated by state governors who offer names to the Presidency for positions knowing full well that such appointees will do their bidding. The inflation and corruption of development projects that results from this, damages both the region and confidence in government. It is difficult to see how Johnathan’s commitment “to sanitize the NDDC” will be supported by this combination of appointments.
The Oronsaye Committee was however, reported to have made a number of substantive recommendations that could drive reform. One of them was the appointment of an interim management team of professional, passionate and competent individuals with zeal to restructure and reshape the organisation while a search for leadership with the required skills and integrity was conducted.?
‘’Obviously this recommendation’’, according to the SDN, ‘’has been ignored but the many serious issues that affect the Niger Delta’s largest development agency cannot be swept under the carpet. It appears the usual political power games have won the day and hopes of dramatic changes at top the NDDC have been dashed.
‘’We would urge all readers to seek evidence from the Presidency of substantive action to address the many shortcomings of the NDDC. This should be part of a drive to ensure that in 18 months when a further rotation of directors is due there is a serious reassessment of whether NDDC has leadership capable of delivering on development promises to our region,’’ they added.?
Before the subsisting amnesty programme which came into force in October 2009, the oil region for years has been a zone of low intensity war. The largely Ijaw-dominated uprising began in November 1998 as a peaceful protest (Ogele) by youths. But the establishment responded to the peaceful campaign by killing hundreds of the defenceless Ijaw youths. And by November the following year, 1999, when Odi, a rustic Ijaw community in Bayelsa State was sacked by soldiers who acted on the orders of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ijaw youths came to realise that the Nigerian state was perhaps, not interested in any form of dialogue with the oppressed and exploited peoples of the resource-endowed region.
The approach of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to the Niger Delta conflict was widely perceived to be encouraging, in spite of the circumstances surrounding his emergence as Nigeria’s leader. The late president, backed by his successor, Jonathan, who was his deputy then, set up a panel that was known as the Niger Delta Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee (NDPCRC) which was chaired by Senator David Brigidi, an Ijaw, from Bayelsa State. The Brigidi panel had the incumbent Senior Special Adviser to President Jonathan on Niger Delta Affairs, who is also overseeing the amnesty programme,? Mr. Kingsley Kuku, also an Ijaw from Ondo State, as its Secretary.?
Kuku, was one of the collegiate leaders of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) in the late 1990s. He was later a member of the Ondo State House of Assembly, and a thorn in the flesh of the Olusegun Agagu administration. With Kuku’s link to the IYC, the purist ‘gospel’ of Egbesu, an Ijaw deity, it seems he is eminently qualified to drive Jonathan’s dream for the oil region.?
Going by guarded whispers from those close to him, and who know him better, there are pointers that Kuku, is already working silently to bring about a roadmap that will make the oil and gas region the most attractive investors’ haven in Africa. He is expecting the country’s political sovereigns to massively support the policies and programmes of Jonathan.??
But what seems to be lacking so far is the willingness of some key stakeholders- the unrepentant militants- to play ball.?
As the Jonathan administration struggles to demobilise the volatile oil region, the neo-liberal reform policies of the obviously imperial Obasanjo regime which the current ruling circles?? inherited, are still resulting in more dispossession of the people from their resources and displacement of oil-bearing communities from their means of livelihood. Deregulated commerce or “free-trade” is still causing more social and ecological destruction in the oil region.