The Chairman of the Governing Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Lauretta Onochie, has said that her tenure will reposition the NDDC and bring prosperity to the Niger Delta.
Onochie said that despite the huge funds allocated to the interventionist agency over the years, the Niger Delta region has remained underdeveloped.
She said this shortly after assuming office at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Thursday.
The former presidential aide noted that the NDDC was a shame to the oil-rich region and the country at large, noting that funds mapped for the development of the area were being looted away to Abuja, Lagos, and overseas.
According to her, “This organisation was commissioned specifically for the people of the Niger Delta. It is an interventionist agency that is supposed to bring about prosperity; it is supposed to bring development in our region.
“This organisation was set up in 2000. And, if you go around the Niger Delta to date, there is little or nothing to show for it. NDDC has been a shame of the Niger Delta and a shame of our nation.”
Continuing, she said, “As I said yesterday, at our inauguration, he (Buhari) never does things in his interest. Everything he does, he does in the interest of Nigerians. And this board you see here represents that interest.
“We are here to reposition NDDC. We are here to serve the people of the Niger Delta and by extension people of Nigeria. We are here to do things differently. When I returned from the diaspora in 2014 to join his (Buhari) campaign, what I heard everywhere was ‘that’s not how we do it here. Madam, this is not London; this is not the UK’.
“We are here to do things differently. We have come up with ideas and I believe that every one of you seated here has great and beautiful ideas. If you have been lost in the system of doing things in the way they used to be done, please dust them and throw them away. We have new ideas and we welcome the same new ideas from you.”
Earlier, the new NDDC Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, said the management has not come to antagonize anybody but to work together as a team to reach set objectives of the commission.”
