NDDC: Group lashes Akpabio, Abuja cabal over manipulation, urges Buhari to inaugurate the substantive board

By Anita Godfrey

A Niger Delta Social Cultural Group, Ijaw Interest Advocates (IIA), popularly known as the Izanzan Intellectual Camp has tongue-lashed senator God’swill Akpabio and the Abuja cabal for allegedly unleashing terror on the management of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, MND.

The group in a statement by its National Coordinator, Arerebo Salaco Yerinmene SNR and available to Congress correspondent in Asaba, Delta state said Akpabio’s reign in Niger Delta Ministry and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) ruined the entire Niger Delta region, adding that all ongoing NDDC project sites had shut down as contractors were not paid, except Akpabio’s alleged cooked up imaginary fake river desilting and emergency jobs without project locations.

Salaco, however, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately rescue the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC and Niger Delta Ministry, NDM from the Abuja cabal and suspected looters.

The statement which was titled: “NDDC AKPABIO’S TERROR REIGN: THE STRUGGLE IS NOT YET OVER, WE MUST GO TO THE SECOND PHASE TO RESCUE NDDC, NDM BACK FROM ABUJA” stated: “As Akpabio bows to the prayers of Niger Delta people and resigned, the mental terror is gradually winding up in the Niger Delta region. However, as a people, we must set aside a special day to celebrate freedom from the disastrous claws of our evil son, Akpabio.”

According to the statement, the development and economy of the people and region were greatly hampered, as some forfeited personal properties from bank loans, some went to prison for inability to service bank loans, and some develop Blood Pressure (BP) and died because of loans from banks.

“The three (3) years deceitful and wasteful forensic audit was used as a blanket to distract and deceive the Presidency and Nigerians. It was a mere tool to perpetuate an unimaginable looting spree of fake desilting and emergency projects. There will be no known name to describe the current federal government anti-corruption crusade if Akpabio’s river desilting and emergency projects that gulped over 80% of funds that accrue to the commission are not investigated and accounted for.” the group asserted.

Read the full statement:

NDDC AKPABIO’S TERROR REIGN: THE STRUGGLE IS NOT YET OVER, WE MUST GO TO THE SECOND PHASE TO RESCUE NDDC, AND NDM BACK FROM ABUJA.

As Akpabio bows to the prayers of the Niger Delta people and resigned, the mental terror is gradually winding up in the Niger Delta region. However, as a people, we must set aside a special day to celebrate freedom from the disastrous claws of our evil son, Akpabio.

Akpabio’s reign in Niger Delta Ministry and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) ruins the entire Niger Delta region as all ongoing NDDC project sites shut down, and contractors were not paid except for Akpabio’s cooked up imaginary fake desilting and emergency jobs without project locations.

The development and economy of the people and region were greatly hampered with as some forfeited personal properties from bank loans, some went to prison for inability to service bank loans, and some develop Blood Pressure (BP) and died because of loans from banks.

The three (3) years of the deceitful and wasteful forensic audits were used as a blanket to distract and deceive the Presidency and Nigerians. It was a mere tool to perpetuate an unimaginable looting spree of fake desilting and emergency projects. There will be no known name to describe the current federal government anti-corruption crusade if Akpabio’s river desilting and emergency projects that gulped over 80% of funds that accrue to the commission are not investigated and accounted for.

Courtesy of our highly deceitful kinsman, Akpabio, the business activities and marketplace of NDDC/ NDM that were usually done in the south have now been sold outrightly to the hands of the cabal hawks in Abuja, feasting on them like vultures. The Abuja cartel like pirates in power sees NDDC and NDM as cash cows rather than a developmental agency used to calm an aggrieved people that had suffered age long deprivation unjustly.

These 2 all-important core regional offices were created out of the bloody Ijaw youth crises, countless lives of Ijaw youths were sacrificed, Ijaw communities were razed down completely, and even the multinational oil companies paid dearly and lost a lot. Today, Akpabio because of personal greed has taken these so important offices oiling the peace in the Niger back to the absolute control of Abuja and total exclusion of the people of Niger Delta and the purposes they were created for.

To shock us, Akpabio employed over an additional 55% of non-Niger Deltans from a particular region as staff of NDDC, meaning in a few years to come, they would have taken over the entire managerial spaces in the NDDC and Niger Delta ministry, a commission specifically created to cater for a particular people and region is now ruined and occupied by non-Niger Deltans. I wonder how many Niger Deltans are employed in the North East Development Commission?

Those men and women from the South-South, that helped to facilitate Akpabio’s destruction of the region would not be forgotten so soon. Their rules and love for a pot of porridge against the suffering of our people will be in the history books for records purposes.

However, the struggle is not yet over, we must go to the second phase which is to rescue NDDC and the Niger Delta ministry back from Abuja, and rewind them to the Niger Delta for the purposes they were created.

We give special greetings to the few true comrades that stood firm against all odds of harassment, bribery of financial inducements/ employment offers, all sorts of intimidation, and ultimately threats to lives.

Victoria Acerta! Aluta Continua

Arecibo Salaco Yerinmene SNR
National Coordinator, Ijaw Interest Advocates (IIA); Izanzan Intellectual Camp