By Festus Masajuwa

Following the Senate screening and approval of 15 nominees for the governing board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) which included Pius Odubu and Bernard Okumagba as chairman and managing director of the commission as well as 13 other nominees as members of the board, many Nigerians had expected that inauguration of the board would follow for it to hit the ground running in furtherance of the goals of the Commission to foster growth and development in the Niger Delta region.

But on the contrary, the same government that submitted the names of these individuals for confirmation by the Senate, made a volteface, and by executive fiat shove aside a legitimate board and went ahead to hand-pick and constitute an interim management committee.

The former deputy president of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu puts it succinctly when he said “…we made a law here stating that there would be a board for NDDC, and anything outside that, for me, amounts to sabotage…”

Ekweremadu went further to state that “for any person to set up an interim management board, I believe it is something that should not be acceptable to the National Assembly.”

Usually, the process of screening at the National Assembly is always time-consuming with a lot of inconveniences both on the part of the candidates being screened and on the lawmakers.

In countries where the principle of separation of powers works perfectly, once the ritual of screening has been concluded and the candidates scale through the exercise, there is no going back.

But Nigerians watch in horror as President Muhammadu Buhari, discarded the board. The President was able to do so since the 9th Senate under the leadership of Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan has been widely accused of being a rubber stamp to the Executive arm of government.

In this current administration, laws have been suspended in the country. It is only what Buhari says that is law and must be seen to be law. It actually goes without saying that Ike Ekweremadu and his fellow members that make up the minority can only have their say but the majority, made up of a few powerful interests, will always have their way.

In the year 2000, the NDDC was established by an act of the National Assembly to address underdevelopment of the oil-bearing communities in Niger Delta as a result of the region’s agitation for development, and a governing board was constituted to oversee the activities of the commission. The Act spells out clearly the nature and terms that must guide the conduct of the commission which include how the board is to be constituted.

Since its establishment in 2000, although the commission has so far fallen short of its objectives and has been besieged by widespread corruption, however, one thing that previous governments have done rightly was to follow the set down rules in constituting governing boards for the commission.

But under the Buhari administration, it however, does not come as a surprise that a government notorious for flouting court judgments and losing billions of dollars in contract breach (the case of  P&ID vs Nigeria), that such administration will dictatorially ignore a duly and legally constituted board for an illegally constituted interim management committee. One begins to wonder if this sheer disregard for the rule of law and the constitution by this government will ever come to an end.

On assumption of office the Buhari administration dissolved the NDDC board it met on ground which was to be replaced by a duly constituted governing board.

The reasons he gave was for a holistic forensic audit exercise as well as verification of contracts by the commission was to be carried out. As the Buhari’s administration would deem fit, an interim management board was created in conflict with the substantive board that had already been confirmed by the Senate.

What also was surprising was the appointment of an acting managing director for the commission with no considerations for the legal requirements, and also without her going through the mandatory Senate screening, and also without a board of directors, thereby functioning as a sole administrator. No thanks again to the media-branded rubber stamp Senate that permits such executive flagrant abuse of the law.

For some reasons, one is forced to believe that there must be case of Voice of Esau but the hand of Jacob behind the scene machinating this continuity of illegality.

Meanwhile, this same interim management committee that the Minister of Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio says has the single task of overseeing the forensic audit, is already administering the N300billion budget of the NDDC as well as performing the functions of an actual board, which include awarding contracts.

In a piece titled ‘Why Buhari must stop Akpabio’s circus at the NDDC’ by Abiye Tolarin; he buttressed the need for Buhari to immediately disband the so-called Interim Management Committee (IMC) as it is a needless waste of time.

Questions that must be answered are: How come the board members whose names were submitted by the President, screened and confirmed by the Senate are not the ones overseeing the forensic auditing? If they are not capable of overseeing the audit process, how then do we confidently say they can oversee the entire commission? If the duly constituted board has the confidence of the Presidency to be able to handle the commission, one therefore, sees no reason illegally constituted IMC will instead be trusted to do a better job than the ones already screened and confirmed by the Senate.

We must be very careful not to destroy tomorrow through our today’s faulty actions. We must avoid setting dangerous precedents that could be very difficult to change. The interest of Nigeria must be uppermost in the mind of those who are today privileged to sit on the transient seat of power.

.Masajuwa, a public relations expert, writes from Lagos

Vanguard