The Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to launch an investigation into allegations of illegal payments of N20billion to ghost contractors in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
In a press conference in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, its national spokesman, Mr Ebilade Ekerefe, expressed displeasure over the debt being owed genuine contractors that have finished projects awarded by the commission.
The group claimed that the silence of the presidency over the alleged payment of ghost workers brought forth by the council shows they were complicit in the allegation.
IYC said they had lost confidence in the present administration as the issues of crime and criminality, including road projects such as the moribund East/West road have remained unattended to.
“President Muhammadu Buhari should rise up to this occasion and clear the corruption toga tied around his administration due to the numerous unresolved high profile fraud cases allegedly perpetrated by ministers under his administration. If the President, Muhammadu Buhari and those in the presidency could not investigate the allegation brought forward by the council, it means they are all involved in the on-going fraud in the NDDC.
“We have already lost confidence in the ability of the present administration to keep to its words on issues of crime and criminality. Months after the submission of the audit report, the Buhari administration has gone mute over its implementation.
“In the years of the present administration, the Niger Delta region has been heavily dealt with by President Buhari for no just reason. The road projects including the moribund East/West road have remained a death trap. The youths empowerment programme remained poor. Projects celebrated and purportedly deployed to the region are either dead or moribund. We are no longer worried that the political appointees from the region were deployed against their people and they are enjoying it. But let us warn, payback time is coming soon,” Ekerefe added.
