By Ochuko Akuopha

ISOKO National Youth Assembly (INYA) has described the delay in the inauguration of a substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as regrettable, saying the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio cannot continue to fool the people of the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

Reacting to the development, President of INYA, Comrade Amos Etaluku said: “A commission that is owned by the entire people of the Niger Delta region cannot be hijacked by one man.” He noted: “Akpabio was nowhere to be found when some of our leaders were at the forefront of the agitation for the establishment of NDDC. He cannot continue the evil of not inaugurating a board for the commission. “He did promise that the board would be inaugurated after the forensic audit that would be concluded in July, but two months after, the board has not been inaugurated and we frown at it because it is slowing down the pace of development in the Niger Delta.

“We call on President Muhammadu Buhari and Akpabio to, as a matter of urgency, inaugurate the board to speed up the pace of development of the region.”

On the commission’s projects said to have been abandoned, he said: “The investigations have been carried out in the forensic audit, so they should forget about this media trial that they are doing. If they know the names of those who abandoned projects, they should use security agents to go after them. “They should punish them or drag them back to site, unless they are telling us they don’t know their names. I think they should go after those that abandoned these projects.”