Angry youths drawn from the nine Niger Delta states have concluded plans to embark on streets protest across the region, alleging “some powerful politicians were frustrating the current board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from delivering on its core mandate in the region.”
Coming under the aegis of the Consolidated Youths of Niger Delta (CYND), the youths resolved after their emergency meeting in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital on Thursday, to also take the protest to Aso Rock, “if activities of politicians continue to hamper smooth operations of the Commission.”
A communiqué at the end of the meeting read by Comrade Frank Naday, the National Coordinator of the group, alleged that Senator Magnus Abe and the former governor of Bayelsa state, Chief Timiprieye Silva were working in close collaboration with other politicians“to politicize the Commission”.
“We have already finished with a petition on this matter to be forwarded to the Presidency because since the appointment of the new NDDC board led by Prof. Nelson Brambaifa, these politicians have jumped in, and are trying to arm-twist President Muhammadu Buhari’s hands to impose their choice candidate as the Managing Director (MD) of the agency.
“Since he was named as the Acting MD of the agency, Prof. Brambaifa, has demonstrated enough capacity even with the lean resources in the coffers of the Commission in tackling the myriads of development challenges facing the Niger Delta region especially in the areas of scholarships, vocational training for youths, road works and settlement of arrears owed contractors.
The group lauded the NDDC board for defraying the backlog of arrears owed youths who were engaged to undertake the water hyacinth contract worth several millions of Naira.
“Under his watch in the last couple of months, the current board has shown that it is not in the interest of the people of Niger Delta to play politics with projects as others before him because he is not a politician.
“This is the first time we will have someone with the mindset of a technocrat who is not interested in using the NDDC platform as a springboard or preparatory ground to launch himself to elective office,” Naday noted.
According to him, “within the last five months, the new NDDC board has returned the Commission to its core mandate of developing the region and doused the prevalent cases of militancy and youths restiveness that used to be the order of the day in Niger Delta”.
“And because Prof. Brambaifa is not ready to open up the commission to their political brigandage and plundering, they want to see him out by all means. As the youths whose future is tied to this, we are ready to resist these evil manoeuvres by desperate politicians,” he stressed.
He, therefore, called on President Buhari, to immediately confirm Prof. Brambaifa as the substantive MD of the agency “in order to ward off the prying eyes of desperate politicians who see the agency as their milking cow.”
