NDDC describes Niger Delta governors as valued partners
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has described the governors of the nine Niger Delta states as critical stakeholders and partners in the development of the Niger Delta region.
The NDDC Director Corporate Affairs, Mr. Charles Obi Odili, who spoke in an interview at the commission’s headquarters in Port- Harcourt, noted that the governors of the Niger Delta states were strategic stakeholders and partners in the task of developing the oil-rich region.
According to him, the governors play a key role in the process of building an egalitarian and development-oriented Niger Delta; the kind of Niger Delta that all can be proud to call home.
He said: “The governors form the advisory committee which is supposed to meet from time to time to look at areas where they can intervene and advise management and the board on the way forward.
“So, they are strategic partners in the process of building an egalitarian and a development-oriented Niger Delta region. The governors of the region are very important and worthy stakeholders in the task of building the region.”
The director also underlined the importance of another organ, the partners for sustainable development forum, which he said is critical to a coordinated response to the development challenges of the Niger Delta.
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He said that it is an avenue for the governors or their deputies or even representatives of their governments to liaise with the commission for proper synergy.
Reacting to insinuations that the NDDC is often over-politicized, Odili noted that the commission is a political creation and as such cannot be entirely divorced from political considerations.
On media reports alleging that governors of the Niger Delta states were instigating the probe of the commission, Odili explained: “I did mention that the governors visited Mr. President and that the President as the father of the nation, reserves the right to look at the various components because the federal government puts in so much money and would like to see what we are getting out of that effort.
“It is a welcome development that a probe is coming as a lot of things will come to the fore. The NDDC is over-burdened, being just an interventionist agency.
“Everybody feels some form of entitlement and the commission cannot take on the entire gamut of regional expectations alone.”
