Ijaw youths shut down NDDC headquarters over absence of agency’s substantive board

Amaka Agbu, Port Harcourt

Ijaw Youths Congress (IYC) on Thursday shut down the recently completed 13-floor Headquarters of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), located at the Eastern By-Pass, Marine Base in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State.

The shutdown is coming on the heels of similar exercises carried out by the youth body in Bayelsa and other states earlier this week at the expiration of the one-month ultimatum handed to the federal government to constitute a substantive board for the commission.

The angry youths hoisted the Green-Red-Blue IYC flag in front of the Commission and blocked all human and vehicular movements in and out of the complex
The ijaw youths numbering over two hundred were seen blocking all the entrances chanting solidarity songs, halting all operations of the Commission in compliance with the national expanded executive and stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt, last month to shut down and occupy all the Commission’s offices in the region.

According to the Assistant Secretary of the Eastern Zone of the Ijaw Youth Congress, Mr. Ibiso Harry, it was unfortunate that the one month ultimatum, the body issued to the presidency was ignored.

Mr Harry said that the IYC was left with no other alternative than to block the Commission’s complex in compliance with the directive of the IYC President, Peter Igbifa, adding that the continued stay of the interim management was unknown to the laws establishing the NDDC.

Meanwhile in spite of the heavy security mounted by the police, the workers were nowhere to be found before and after the blockage.