By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

The Niger Delta Rights Advocates ,NDRA, a political pressure group, has lauded the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission,NDDC, under the leadership Dr Samuel Ogbuku for rewriting the narrative of poor work space and substandard work environment that has bedevilled the agency’s Bayelsa State office since its inception in 2000.

The group recall the difficult work environment that staff posted from the headquarters of the Commission to Bayelsa, had to grapple with as this counteracted productivity and innovative thinking at the workspace.

NDRA, in a statement by its Director of Research & Evaluation, Dr Alozie Chucks pointed out that staff accommodation and work space challenges are critical needs and took out a chunk of yearly budgets, as the NDDC serviced avoidable subheads every fiscal year which impacted on service delivery to the grassroot who deserve critical infrastructure and have been dying to have them in more than six decades of oil exploitation and exploration.

He said for the fact that a drain pipe which did not benefit the ordinary people of the region has been checkmated today should gladden the hearts of development experts, civil society organisations and stakeholders.

Chucks said: “The NDDC management must going forward block all avenues for leakages within their system and ensure monies meant for our people goes into significantly improving the lives and livelihood of our people. Twenty-five years down the line, the NDDC should not find itself in certain conditions opposite of what an interventionist agency should be. NDDC must not be a case of a doctor that cannot heal himself.

“With the completion of an ultramodern office complex, staff quarters together with a clinic billed for commissioning on June 17 2025 in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, we charge the Ogbuku led management to not rest on its oars by ensuring staff welfare continues to earn priority attention.

“Our stand as far as the region’s development interest is concerned, remains that the Commission serves as a single purpose vehicle for driving responsible, responsive and accountable infrastructural changes capable of lifting the rural poor out of decades of poverty while remediating our immediate environment for future generations to live and survive on.

“To this end, cost saving measures should be adopted to end the era where funds meant for regional development are diverted into private pockets and corruption becomes the trademark of an Agency that should supposedly, meet the yearnings of twenty-seven (27) Senatorial districts in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”