The member representing Warri Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives, Hon. Daniel Reyenieju has expressed utter disgust against the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) over the Commission’s skulduggery and cynical indifference in its inability to grasp the founding ideals of its establishment as it engages in misplaced and reckless duplication of the efforts of other MDA’s of the Federal Government.
Reyenieju made this disclosure weekend in Warri while addressing Benin River Youth Forum.
He said, “It is most disheartening and duplicitous to hear the NDDC claim to have embarked on such high frivolous projects as skills acquisition for youths, building of hostels in government owned universities located in the region, post-graduate scholarship awards among others; when in reality the MDAs of the Federal Government, the Amnesty Program and the Ministry of the Niger Delta are also engaged in skills acquisition program for the same youths in the region.
“It has become palpably obvious that the Commission has lost its trajectory and has unfortunately metamorphosed into a ‘meddlesome interloper’ with the attendant waste of scarce capital resources that would have been used for developing the region.”
He advise the Commission to look to novel fields enabled in its establishment Acts and engage in mega projects such as construction of major roads to link major oil platforms to host and adjoining communities, construction of foreshore protection to control ocean surge and erosion in the areas that are noted for such environmental menace.
“If communities like Bonny and Kula in Rivers State, Ugborodo and Benikrukru in Delta State and other communities that host major oil bearing platforms are linked by roads, the economic effects of such interventions will be monumental and will definitely send positive signals to the region and its peoples; as the huge amount of monies usually claimed to have been spent on logistics and oil fields inspection by the respective oil conglomerates would have been diverted to other credible and productive outlets by the Government and the transnational oil companies.
“On a broader scale, the environmental impact of such target deliveries would mean that the areas would become accessible by roads and would concomitantly reduce youth restiveness and facilitate economic growth and incentivization of relevant infrastructures in the affected communities.
“With the nascent activities of the NDDC, there is probably an inevitable discrepancy between its stated goals enunciated in its establishment Act and its ability and actual intent to accomplish these goals.
“It is either the management of the NDDC are astonishingly ignorant of its roles or at best confused, and as such cascading ignis fatuus with the huge cash at its disposal” said Reyenieju.
The lawmaker said that the continued action of the Commission to replicate projects that did not take communities concern into consideration will be tantamount to brazen provocation as it would be deemed as bereft of the ‘specifics’ that constitute the ideas of growth and development relevant to the region.
Reyenieju also appealed to the Federal Government to send an ‘oversight panel’ to the Commission with a view to streamlining its activities towards getting it decentralized given the fact that since its existence; it cannot be honestly said to have meaningfully imparted positively on the material conditions of the people and the infrastructure of the region.
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