Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has enjoined the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to ensure they engage the services of competent and trusted contractors in order to ensure they deliver quality and durable jobs for the people of the Niger Delta.
Speaking during a meeting with the new management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) who paid him a courtesy visit on Tuesday in the Government House, Benin City, Governor Oshiomhole Said: “Let me congratulate you on your well deserved Acting MD of the NDDC. We in Edo State are praying that this Acting will be confirmed so that you have the confidence you need to proceed with long term planning because development issues require proper planning and some of the projects require long term gestation to see them through and NDDC has suffered for too long.
“NDDC has been a huge embarrassment to the people of South-South. NDDC was just a pot of honey which was meant for the people of the South-South to lick and to minimize the bitterness arising from the devastation of oil exploration and the concomitant pollution, whether it is air pollution, sea pollution arising from the process of extracting the liquid gold which Nigeria lives on.”
According to Governor Oshiomhole: “While a lot of people celebrated the birth of this wonderful intervention agency, those who led them were behaving like old fashioned honey bees. They produced the honey and they licked out of it and then take the other half back to Abuja, leaving the people to be distant spectators in a matter in which they are supposed to be the chief beneficiary and that is the picture of the NDDC.
“So, to re-orientate it, you have a lot to do. You have to look inward and weed out, all the remaining vestiges of this past which cannot be reformed; otherwise, you will find out that when you are saddled by people who don’t share your vision, nothing can be more frustrating. If your worker is not convinced and doesn’t buy into your vision, you can push him out but you will find that you can’t change him. So I hope that you will have the political protection you need and I am sure that our President will give that to you so that you will completely reorganize the NDDC and get it to do what it is suppose to do.
“Like you said, over 400 projects, but they are just 400 bleeding pots and I wish you have time and I will request that you come back another time and I will devote a day or two and ask your Edo Director to come along and we will visit each of these projects. You will weep for the people of Edo State and the South-South and when you come with your register, you will see how much will show in NDDC books that they have spent on those projects and when you reconcile it with what you will see.”
He said: “The only one road that I have seen, but I don’t know the condition now is the road they built somewhere in Uromi which connects one major road to the house of the leader of the BOT Chairman of PDP. They had to do that to make it motorable for obvious reasons. Every other road they did in Benin City was just like child’s project.
“I could not imagine how everybody in NDDC just see the place as a place you need to go and make money. I really want to take time to show you some projects. You won’t be able to understand my pains except you leave the books and we try to locate the projects, their areas and you make your evaluation. I don’t know how NDDC people just do things, it was their own oil block.
“AAU contract was given to somebody who as far as I know is never a building contractor. That is NDDC tradition. Everybody is a building contractor and you know it is not so. Anybody can supply stationeries although in those days, you need some expertise but construction requires a certain level of competence but they just give the job to friends and so on. We are all political office holders, but that doesn’t mean I will give the construction of an aircraft to a motor mechanic because he is an APC member, that would be irresponsible.”
He continued: “So, I suggest to you that those contractors telling you, if you do this, give us 6 months, you will do well to sack them, to revoke those contracts and select contractors on the basis of proven evidence of competence, equipments, man power and much more importantly, evidence of jobs they have done. NDDC cannot be a workshop for trial and error for apprenticeship. If you don’t do this, you will give them the money and they will still come back with stories.
“I don’t believe they are suddenly going to change. That is what they have been used to and what they will do is to compromise and nothing is going to change. I will think that any contractor that has been mobilized, and the contractor has not worked, the proper thing to do is to revoke, re advertise and encourage competent contractors to handle these projects. If you do this, under your tenure, at least, you will be able to show what you have done.
“So, I want to appeal to you that you need to review the list of your contractors. I have absolute confidence that with you, a no-nonsense activist, they will either bend or they will be broken, and I know that you are determine to succeed and we in Edo State will support you in our prayers. So, I congratulate you and any support you need from us, moral and otherwise, you can take that for granted. The land, we should give you a good land, certainly not in a swampy area, because the problem of erosion in Benin can become serious. Under a month we can give you a land to build your office.
“I have confidence that you cannot afford to do anything different from what you are used to, being Benin made, so I want to thank you”
Speaking earlier, the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Hon. Mrs. Ibim Semenitari said, “today we are in Edo to flag off the intervention of the NDDC in the area of lassa fever. We are providing 15 thousand lassa fever kits for Edo, Rivers, Ondo States as well as to the other states within the region. In addition to that, we will also be presenting various essential drugs to help in the treatment of malaria, some antibiotics as well as some multi-vitamins and de-worming tablets.
“Your Excellency, we have also received some requests to intervene in the immunization programme, and I want to confirm to you that six mobile vaccine coaches and one fixed cold-room, and this will be delivered in two weeks. We have 450 projects earmarked for Edo State, and I know that your Excellency knows more than I do. And I confess that 153 of these are yet to commence out of the 450. But we will ensure that we fast track these.
“Your Excellency, we will work assiduously with members of your team to ensure we put some pressure on the contractors so that we can deliver to the people of Edo State. With the spirit of change and certainly with the directive given by Mr. President, matching orders to ensure that we deliver to the people of the Niger Delta, and of course with you our Comrade Governor steering the ship in Edo State, we are sure that the NDDC will shape up and deliver on all of these projects.
“Your Excellency, we have one small request to make. The NDDC in Edo State is still a tenant. Your Excellency had graciously given us some property but it is in a swampy area. We want to appeal to His Excellency to relocate us to somewhere so that we can immediately commence the building of the NDDC office in Edo State.”
• Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, NDDC Boss
