By Patrick Ederaro

For Nigeria, a country, largely structurally federal but functionally unitary, where development initiatives within any of its component parts is largely dictated by the disposition of the government of the day, the creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, on June 5, 2000, by the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, signaled a major paradigm shift in the nature of interaction between the Federal Government and the Niger Delta region and its people.

It was seen as a clear demonstration of political will to ensure the economic and social integration of the Niger Delta people.   Painfully, perhaps due to a combination of financial recklessness and outright corruption, the agency has not lived up to the essence of its creation almost 20 years ago.

At a recent exploratory meeting with the interim management of the NDDC, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, bemoaned the state of affairs in the Commission. According to him: “Almost 20 years after the agency was set up, its head office project remains uncompleted.

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“The agency rather pays between N200 million and N300 million in rents to the government of Rivers State annually”.   Similarly, the Commission is indebted to contractors (real or imagined) to the tune of N2 trillion, yet uncompleted or out-rightly abandoned projects litter the nine states that make up the region.

Kidnapping, armed banditry, oil bunkering and pipeline vandalism remain rife in the region, leaving in its wake, a generation of rogue millionaires just as the nation’s economy continues to bleed.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, has reported a 77% increase in pipeline vandalism incidents in June 2019, almost double the figure recorded for May.

Similarly, recent reports indicate that the first six months of 2019 saw 22.6 million barrels of crude oil lost to illegal bunkering and this number may double by year end.

This is according to Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, Chairman of the Ad hoc Committee of the National Economic Council on Crude Oil Theft, Prevention & Control.

In the light of the foregoing, there is an urgent need for new thinking among all stakeholders in the region’s development.

The NDDC should as a matter of deliberate policy embrace clear, evidence based social and public policy options in the running of the affairs of the Commission as this, together with a determined focus on transparency, are at the heart of successful development intervention efforts the world over. There is the need to examine the initiatives by the NDDC so far vis-a-vis its impact on regional development and see how it compares with what is obtainable and has worked in other jurisdictions with similar challenges in key thematic areas like education, health, environment and physical infrastructure.

In my humble opinion, there are three key strands to this new thinking around:

*Pragmatic human capacity development/job creation initiatives

*Effective Public Private Partnership initiatives for enhanced service delivery.

*Development/management of a Projects Web Portal to promote accountability and project tracking.

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Within the premise of the much needed macro level paradigm shift in the operations of the NDDC, the recent announcement of seasoned corporate titan, Benard Okumagba as Managing Director designate of the Commission, can be viewed as a positive milestone in the region’s quest for sustainable development.

Given his impressive academic credentials and rich professional pedigree, there is excitement among progressive minded stakeholders across the Niger Delta, a region in desperate search for a “New Deal”.

Hitherto, much of the agency’s developmental initiatives have been constrained by rent-seeking and clientilism, for which many of the region’s political and business elite stand indicted.

It is incumbent on the incoming board and management of this all-important interventionist agency to place emphasis on responsible governance practices not just within the agency but also across the nine states that make up the region, including the oil majors.

This is a prerequisite for addressing poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation: key enablers of violent regionalist agitation as has been witnessed across the Niger Delta region in recent years.

Vanguard