President Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday, ordered a speedy investigation into activities of the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission.
Buhari had on October last ordered a forensic audit of the commission from its inception in 2001 till 2019.
But since the auditing process began, NDDC has been under the spotlight, with allegations and counter-allegations, especially between former managing director, Joi Nunieh and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio.
Nunieh had alleged that Akpabio asked her to change the dollars in the NDDC account; sack the head of the legal team, who is a Northerner; remove all directors who refused to follow his instructions and also to implicate Chairman of the Senate Committee on NDDC, Peter Nwabaoshi.Nunieh further accused Akpabio of sexual harassment, budget padding, awarding 30 contracts — but the minister has denied all the allegations.On Thursday, policemen laid siege to Nunieh’s residence ahead of her scheduled appearance before a national assembly panel investigating the NDDC.
But Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, freed Nunieh from the police siege.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Thursday, said Buhari had directed all investigative agencies and auditing firms to speed up the ongoing probe.
Shehu said the presidential directive demanded better coordination among the groups “to ensure that the administration’s effort to bring sanity, transparency and accountability to the management of the large amount of resources dedicated to development of the Niger Delta sub-region is not derailed.”
He said Buhari “expressed his strong determination to get to the root of the problem undermining the development of the Niger Delta and its peoples in spite of enormous national resources voted year after year for this singular purpose.
“According to the directive, auditing firms and investigative agencies working in collaboration with National Assembly Committees to resolve the challenges in the NDDC must initiate actions in a time-bound manner and duly inform the Presidency of the actions being taken.
“The President also directed timely sharing of information and knowledge in a way to speedily assist the administration to diagnose what had gone wrong in the past and what needs to be done to make corrections in order to return the NDDC to its original mandate of making life better for people in Niger Delta.”
The President assured that his administration would put in place a transparent and accountable governance framework in all other institutions of government, including the NDDC.