Buhari Shakes Up NDDC, Appoints New Managing Director

President Muhammadu Buhari has confirmed the appointment of Professor Nelson Braimbraifa as acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Braimbraifa takes over from Nsima Ekere, who is vying for the office of the governor of Akwa Ibom state on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“The President, following a Federal Executive Council (FEC) resolution, has equally vested the supervisory role of the commission in the Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, as well as approved the dissolution of the extant board,’’ Buhari’s media aide Femi Adesina said in statement on Friday evening.

Buhari’s media aide revealed that the president also approved the appointments of Chris Amadi (Finance and Administration) and Samuel Adjogbe (Projects) as acting Executive Directors of NDDC with immediate effect.

The Niger Delta Development Commission was established in the year 2000 with the mandate to facilitate the rapid and sustainable development of the oil-rich region.

GbaramatuVoice reports that the agency was set up largely as a response to the demands of the population of the Niger Delta.

The area is inhabited by a diversity of minority ethnic groups, which include the Ijaw and the Ogoni.

These ethnic groups established organisations to confront the federal government and multinational oil companies in the 1990s as they demanded for greater autonomy and control of the area’s petroleum resources.