It was Nuhu Ribadu, in the height of his glory as an anti-corruption tsar, who said “When you fight corruption, it fights back.” If there is any politician today living the truism of Ribadu’s immortal words, it is Minister of Niger-Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio. It is an understatement to say that the former governor of Akwa Ibom has been facing barrage of attacks from different angles since he made a firm resolve to ensure that it would not be business as usual in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). To him, what he saw did not reflect the huge billions of dollars that had been plunged into the Commission over the years. As such, he was ready to transform things not minding whose ox is gored.
But many a man is enslaved to innate demons. Led by the beasts within, they commit dastardly acts of savagery and corruption only to confess at the end, alleging a faltered mental state, abject penury and the threat of death, among other extreme circumstances. If what Senator Peter Nwaoboshi said about the alleged award of contract to Akpabio is anything to be accorded any attention, he certainly fits in the bill. By his submission, Nwaoboshi has failed to understand that there is so much a man could say to back up an irrational behaviour, like bribery and corruption.
Besides the fact that Nwaoboshi’s allegation against Akpabio has been trashed as mere figment of his sterile imagination and a porous lie with holes in it, one question that the Senator representing Delta North senatorial district must answer is what is his motive for trying to tarnish a man who is doing his best possible to make sure that true development is enthroned in the Niger-Delta, away from the ruse of the past.
It should be noted that prior to Akpabio’s coming on board as Minister under whom the supervision of NDDC falls, Nwaoboshi had no problems with the culture of sleaze and corrupt enrichment of a few pockets who cleaned out in the Commission. Now that Akpabio has remained resolute that the books of the Commission must be looked into, Nwaoboshi has suddenly been feeling uneasy. Only a man with some skeletons in his wardrobe should be wary of a probe instituted to clean the Augean stable. Why this panicky mode if Nwaoboshi had not soiled his hand?
With an institution like the National Assembly which has been suffering from integrity deficit in the court of public opinion, every right thinking person expects a senator of Nwaoboshi’s standing to lend his support to his former colleague to ensure things are done well in the Commission.
The fact that Nwaoboshi even raised allegation of corruption buttresses Akpabio’s stance that the Commission’s financial dealings be audited.
Until recently, blinding and intolerable sleaze was the name of the game at the NDDC where the main players thought that its treasury was their private cash-point. Since his appointment in July 2019, Akpabio has spoken extensively of how corruption among NDDC officials and contractors has prevented the commission from achieving its mandate of developing the country’s Niger Delta region. “I think people were treating the place as an ATM where you just walk in there to go and pluck money and go away, I don’t think they were looking at it as an interventionist agency,” he said.
There were also cases of contractors collecting money for contracts that were never or haphazardly done or abandoned halfway. Such infrastructural carcasses dot the Niger Delta. All of these had virtually driven the agency into the doldrums.
The former Senator, therefore, constituted the Interim Management Committee to countervail the monumental sleaze, rid the NDDC of corrupt elements and help it recover as much funds from fraudulent contractors as possible. But this was, understandably, not warmly received by beneficiaries of the corrupt system who resorted to planting falsehood in the media to smear the IMC, NDDC and its supervising minister. Several attempts to make the president disband the committee were frustrated.
The approval of the tenure extension of the Professor Keme Pondei-led Interim Management Committee from May 1 to December 31, 2020, by President Muhammadu Buhari, has, however, changed the dynamics.
The tenure extension will cover the period of the forensic audit of the NDDC as approved by the Federal Executive Council. The audit became expedient given the groundswell of corruption in the agency.
Coming on the heels of sustained campaigns of calumny against Godswill Akpabio, who superintends over the NDDC and is the mastermind of the IMC, the tenure extension is seen as perfectly taking the wind out of the sail of corrupt elements and vested interests in the NDDC.
Niger-Delta leader and elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark has chosen his path by showing support for IMC as he has even called on the leadership of the National Assembly to probe their members against whom sundry allegations of corruption have been levelled by the acting MD of the IMC, Pondei, and the acting Executive Director of Projects, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh? The question is why is Nwaoboshi not toeing the honourable path like Chief Clark if he truly cares for the region as he has often mouthed.
As for his allegations, Nwaoboshi who is the Senate Committee chairman on NDDC, lied against Akpabio on N300 Million fencing contract. Akpabio has denied ever being an NDDC contractor. He has explained that what is being bandied around as a letter requesting for NDDC projects contract was zonal intervention projects of the Senate minority leader (whom he was from 2015 to 2019). The intervention projects were different from NDDC projects.
Zonal intervention projects of NASS are not done with NDDC budget. Project intervention, which has a threshold for each Senator and each House of Representative member, is a federally approved program of the NASS annually. The Senators suggest the projects in writing within their envelopes but they go through SDG. In most cases, Senators do not know the companies that won those jobs after due process by the domiciling agencies.
