By Olise Imegwu

I watched absent-mindedly the Arise TV interview where the position of the Act on the President’s nomination of Chief Mrs. Lauretta Onochie was described as unlawful. Such a position is a misunderstanding of the Act as it relates to the said nomination.

First, Section 2(1a) has the Chairman of the board standing on its own, while Section 2 (1b) stands alone, since both are not used conjunctively, they must be read as such.

Second, Section 2(3) defines who is a member as stated in Section 2b (i-f), once again the Chairman is not defined along with the members. Third, Section 4 mentioned the office of the Chairman on the basis of States and not on the basis of an INDIGENE of Oil Producing area or community. Fourthly, Section 2, subsection 2 states that: “the president shall appoint chairman and other members” again, the Chairman is separated from members as defined in 2 (1b)(i -f).

Taken together, the appointment of the Chairman under the Act is not tied to an INDIGENE of an OIL Producing Area/Community, it is rather tied to states and the President has the prerogative of choosing who he wants from Delta State and Chief Lauretta Onochie is his choice and in this case, a square peg in a square hole.” You cannot import into the Act what it is not, therefore, Section 2 (1b) is inapplicable to the appointment of the Chairman.

I, Rt. Hon. Dr. Barr. Olisa Enebeli Imegwu (Philosopher). An indigene of Ndokwa East LGA, the largest Oil Producing Area in Delta North and a totally Niger Delta LGA absolutely agree, body, soul and spirit with the appointment of Madam Onochie as the Managing director of NDDC; by the way, why not Onochie?

At the risk of disappointing some ethnic jingoists and tribal chauvinists, the issue of the marginalisation of Ndokwa nation is well known to all including the operators of the political system but that shouldn’t stop one from giving support appropriately and deservingly to an appointee like Madam Onochie.

I watch in awe, the ones parroting negative vibes against the appointment of Madam Onochie were same people who cheered the appointment of Ibe Kachikwu as the Minister of State for Petroleum and Cairo Ojougbo as the director, NDDC but would turn around to reject Madam Onochie over a rightful call to service by the President, nothing kills like hypocrisy.

I am taken aback with the argument that she is not an indigene of an Oil Producing Community or Area. Ibe Kachikwu, who is from Aniocha LGA, a none Oil Producing LGA and the past Chairman from Cross river State, were appointed and served out their tenures as Minister of Petroleum and Chairman NDDC, respectively. Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, who is still the Chairman of Senate Committee on NDDC is also from Oshimili North LGA, is not an indigene of Oil Producing Area. That is, however, not the case with the situation of Chief Mrs. Lauretta Onochie. In her case, she was appointed on the basis that she is from an Oil Producing State and President Muhammadu Buhari exercised his constitutional powers accordingly. Until we stop playing the politics of “bad-Belle” we will never pull level politically with other competing ethnic nationalities in the scheme of things.

Yes, an MD of Ndokwa extraction would have done more good to the image of the administration and possibly place the President on the path of history for braking the jinx of deliberate marginalisation of the people of Ndokwa/Ukwani federal Constituency but it doesn’t remove from the fact that Madam Onochie’s appointment was equally right.

Ndokwa people should rather focus on the raging inquiry of the whereabouts of the over N100 Billion 13% derivation fund released by President  Buhari to the State and the 50% of it statutorily meant for DESOPADEC, and its share of it.

Only recently, it was alleged that N1 Billion was approved by the State Government to DESOPADEC officials for flood disaster victims in our area. If its true that N50M was used to set up the Camp at Ashaka, N150M to run it, N101M given to each household totalling 1015 and N14M to some individuals, for accountability sake, we want to know what happened to the balance of N685,000,000M and also what was spent in Okinawa West LGA and other camp, if any.

The people of Ndokwa nation should prod deeply into the excesses of this current administration ravaging our political space. What are the dividends of democracy in our nation? The State governor should tell us one legacy project of his administration in our land. We should inquire more into why the outgoing administration decided to treat Ndokwa nation with disdain and outright neglect leaving us in perpetual darkness, no industry, no means of livelihood apart from political industry for our teaming youth population;we need to know what this administration did with the backlog of derivation funds since 1999 paid by the Buhari’s administration to states in the Niger Delta region, where is our own? Where was it expended, what are the commensurate projects that justify the humongous accruals to the state? Ndokwa nation should question the wishy-washy explanations made by the Commissioner of Finance, Delta State, we need the governor to tell Deltans how he expended the monies.

Using the appointment of Madam Onochie as a veneer of escape from the truth is not acceptable. Onochie’s appointment is a call to service and based on her unbroken record of service to humanity under the administration Buhari for eight years running, she will certainly bring value to bear in the NDDC.

The government in Delta State should come up clean on all the barrage of accusations against it rather than holding on to straw. The people already know their common enemy and no one can incite the people against a relatively performing federal government.

The representatives of Ndokwa nation on the board of the DESOPADEC should tell us what they have achieved in their representation of our federal  Constituency, what difference have they made to bring the dividends of democracy home to our people. They should come out clean to give account of themselves on the board. Betterment of a people goes beyond empowering few allies and errand boys but general good.

Rt. Hon.(Dr.) Olise Imegwu, is a former Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly and Community Leader in the ancient Kingdom of Aboh, Delta State.