The Ijaw Youths Council, IYC, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to extend the announced forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, to the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, headed by Professor Charles Dokubo.
Buhari had after a meeting with Niger Delta Governors on October 17th, ordered a forensic audit of the NDDC from 2001 to date.
Mr Alfred Kemepado, bIYC’s Secretary-General, in a statement, commended Buhari for the proposed forensic audit, adding that if sincerely carried out, it would reveal the rot in the NDDC.
He said instead of addressing the issues that led to their establishment, the NDDC and the PAP had become the problems of the region.
He also called on Buhari to devote sufficient time in evaluating members of any committee saddled with the responsibility to audit the commission to avoid compromising them.
He said: “We call on President Buhari to please make out sufficient time to further audit the committee that is set up to audit the NDDC so as to ensure they are not influenced by the NDDC actors as so much money is available to them in billions of Naira to do so.
“We also call on the President to forensically audit the Presidential Amnesty Program to ensure the productivity of that program for the people of the Niger Delta. The President should also look into the over politicization of the commission. The commission seems to have lost its vision and mission to the funding of politics instead of the development of the region.
“A focused NDDC is capable of bringing massive development and total rest to the issues of the Niger Delta, especially the security issues. Instead, the NDDC is known for issuing bogus contracts and the corrupt over-invoicing of such contracts to enrich their cronies who are most times not people from the Niger Delta region.
“We urge President Buhari not to fail to expose culprits no matter how highly placed or which political party they belong. We call on President Buhari to place competence, experience and sufficient knowledge of the ethos, logos and pathos of the region ahead of political patronage in appointing members of the Board, as well as the details of the law establishing the NDDC board.
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“The members appointed or that would be appointed must prove capacity to deliver on the original mandate of the commission before they are considered for such sensitive assignments.
“If possible members appointed into the board should be made to face a public rigorous examination process to prove their worth of holding offices as members of the board because these positions are too sensitive to just give to people who care less about the development of the region as we have noticed in recent years”.
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