For Niger Delta, Abuja Is Not Your Problem
Tales of sleaze in the Niger Delta Development Commission underscore reasons for failed interventions of the agency in the region, writes Samuel Ajayi
At the centre of it all is the Minister of Niger Delta, and former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and the embattled former managing director of the Commission, Mrs. Joi Nunieh. Apart from this were lurid tales from the Rivers State-born former chief executive of how Akpabio tried to sexually assault her.
She alleged that Akpabio asked her to change dollars in the Commission’s accounts, sack the head of the legal team who is a northerner, remove all directors, who would not play ball and also implicate Senator Nwaoboshi. She added that Akpabio asked her to take oath of secrecy but she refused. She also disclosed that Akpabio once asked her to raise a memo and give emergency contract and stated that before she came in, over 30 contracts had been awarded to the minister.
In the period under probe, the Commission spent N85million on overseas trips. The sum of N1.3billion was spent on “community relations” while N122.9millin went into “condolences”. Nunieh, who later made her submission via teleconferencing, apologised to the House for being absent and claimed she could not allow herself to be taken away and disappear without trace “because what would have happened would have been that nobody would have known who took me away and only God knows what would have happened.”
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