By Chris Ochayi
ABUJA—To avoid duplication of projects and building a cohesive approach towards tackling the infrastructural challenges confronting the Niger Delta, arrangements have been concluded to collapse the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, into the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.

Under these new arrangements, the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, would become a parastatal under the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, with the minister-in-charge of the ministry serving as principal umpire to the agency.

Vanguard learnt that the process leading to the collapsing of the development agency was recently conceived and sealed at a two-day stakeholders’ forum on the functional and capacity needs of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, held late last month in Calabar, Cross River State.

The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, in collaboration with the ministry, organised the capacity building forum for directors, deputy directors and assistant directors and other senior staff of the ministry.

The essence of the forum was to develop an effective international standard monitoring and evaluation framework for the ministry, though the issue of bringing the NDDC under the roof of the ministry was exhaustively discussed.

In fact, one of the resolutions passed at the end of the meeting was to lobby and convince the Federal Government to see the benefits to be derived if the NDDC was merged with the ministry.

Participants at the forum, according to source, argued that if the most powerful and richest Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is an agency under the Ministry of Petroleum, nothing should stop NDDC from becoming an agency under the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.

Niger-Delta Development Commission was established by the erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Act 2000 Act No 6 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, as an intervention commission to be funded from the allocation of the Federation Account.

Its main aim was to tackle ecological problems which arise from the exploration of oil minerals in the Niger-Delta area and for connected purposes

But following the slow space in the development of the region, the present administration, under the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, created the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, in September 2008, with a mandate to fast-track the socio-economic development of the Niger Delta, through execution of huge development projects.

Vanguard further learnt that what looked like a prelude to the acceptance of the forum’s resolution was the directive issued by the Federal Government asking the NDDC to handover all activities concerning the construction of the coastal road project to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.