By Samuel Oyadongha & Emem Idio

YENAGOA—Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Mr. Nsima Ekere, yesterday, said that the board as newly constituted was determined to improve on the narratives of the region by enlisting the support and partnership of all stakeholders for the development of the region.

Ekere stated this in Yenagoa, while declaring open an NDDC stakeholders consultative engagement with the theme, Stakeholders as Focal Point in Achieving Peace and Sustainable Economic Development in the Niger Delta Region.

The forum had in attendance, traditional rulers, Community Development Committees, CDC chairmen, elders, youths, women leaders and interest groups drawn from across the eight local government areas of the state.

According to him, stakeholders can help NDDC to improve on its service delivery and sustainable development of the region by active participation and advocacy to get urgent messages across to government and improve consultations with relevant authorities to fast-track development of the region.

Ekere, who was represented by the Commissioner representing Bayelsa State on the Board of the NDDC, Professor Nelson Brambaifa, said: “We have embarked on a life long journey of continued engagement to improve our policies in respond to stakeholders needs, and improve how we deliver services in respond to these needs.

“We should always persevere through all constraints facing us and resist the temptation to resist diatribe and destruction, rather stakeholders should be united for the progressive development of the region.

“Stakeholders at the community level can provide more accurate information about the specific needs across the various sections in their communities just as the board is committed to ensuring that the NDDC projects are driven more by community needs than by other considerations. Stakeholders should stand alongside the commission to defend projects in their community and prevent balkanization of the budget at the National Assembly as has been the case in the past.

“Stakeholders can provide independent verification of projects status within their communities as recipients of the projects and programmes conceived and executed by government. Stakeholders are in the best position to say how these projects and programmes are solving the problems of the communities.”

The forum also featured the presentation of papers  on promoting peace in the Niger Delta region, an imperative action for all stakeholders in collaboration, and also had in attendance the Director of the Bayelsa State Office of the NDDC, Mrs. Omor Oddiri, Director Community and Rural Development, Mr. Ibitoye Abosede, among other top staff of the commission.