Breaking: Buhari sends NNDC board list to Senate for confirmation despite opposition

President Muhammadu Buhari has sent a letter to the Senate seeking the confirmation of the appointment of 16 nominees as board members of Niger Delta Development Commission.

The letter from the president was read on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate President Ahmad Lawan referred it to the Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission after the letter was read.

The committee is expected to report in a week.

On August 27, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the composition of the Board of the Commission, sacking the interim management which was headed by Prof. Nelson Brambaifa.

However, the new board to be headed by Bernard O. Okumagba came under intense opposition from stakeholders with governors from Niger Delta area rejecting the nominees for the board who they said did not reflect governance mechanism in the region.

The commission has been left in the hand of another interim leadership headed by Dr Nkwangaga Lelegima who has come under fire for illegal recruitments into the commission’s workforce.

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Yielding to the demand of the governors, Buhari on the 17th of October after a meeting with the governors, ordered a forensic audit of the commission from 2001 till date.

Indeed stakeholders from the region, especially the youths say they are worried about the Lelegima-led interim board of the Commission over allegation of shady employment deals and alleged dubious award and payments for water hyacinth contracts that failed due process.

Engr. Yamaabana Legborsi, National Coordinator of NDYV and Gen. Victor Ebikoma, Leader of CONDEM in a statement made available to theportcitynews said that going by the wide media report on the allegation that the interim management team of the Commission, was set to illegally recruit over 300 new staff without board approval, the interim management team therefore lacks the credibility to guide the forensic audit team expected to be set up.

According the groups: “We advise that the auditing team should not be supervised by the interim team of bureaucrats who are themselves part of the systemic rot that has bedevilled the commission, rather the new board that was not part of the rot be inaugurated to carry out house cleaning exercise under an atmosphere of transparency that will discourage undue interference.

“The delay in confirming the newly composed Governing Board is counterproductive. If the purpose of the ordered audit is to get to the bottom of the NDDC’s failure, despite the huge funding it has enjoyed for almost 20 years, then the best approach is to have the probe done under new management. Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to carry out the ordered audit under the interim management headed by Dr Nkwangaga Lelegima”.