Group Kicks Against Re-Appointment Of Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo As Chairman House Committee On NDDC

By Akinwale Kasali

A Group under the aegis of Ilaje Parapo Forum, IPF, has kicked against  any move to reappoint Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, representing Akoko North West and Akoko North East of Ondo State as the Chairman, House Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission,NDDC, noting that the lawmaker failed woefully in the last four years.

The Group’s statement was signed by its Chairman, Funsho Ajimuda and Bode Orofin, Secretary of the Group as speculation remains rife that Ojo is lobbying intensely and might use his influence to get back to  the Chairman House Committee on NDDC’s seat after allegedly defrauding the peace loving inhabitants of Niger Delta Region of Ondo state in the Ninth Assembly.

The Group, in the statement, stressed that it recalled the Lawmaker in the 9th Assembly, but he allegedly conspired with the Interim Management Committee of the Commission, IMC, of the NDDC between 2019 and 2022 to deny the people of Ilaje/Ese Odo Federal Constituency in Ondo State their right place in the Commission within time frame mentioned above.

The statement by the Group also added that  It regretted the anticipated development of  the Niger Delta region has  continued to elude the region largely because of corruptions and self aggrandizement of politicians thus leaving the region in a State of perpetual environmental degradations, human and socio-economic squalor.

It also emphasized that the House Committee on NDDC in the 9th Assembly under the chairmanship of Ojo create unprecedented calamities in the Commission for the people of the oil producing Area of the state in terms of projects allocation, empowerment programs, training, Scholarship and employment of new staff into the Commission.

“As part of his constitutional duties to oversight all projects in the region, Hon Olubunmi Tunji Ojo did not visit the oil producing Areas of ILAJE and ESE-ODO for his four years reign as NDDC Committee Chairman and  he never consulted stakeholders in the oil producing communities before imputing Ondo State projects in the NDDC budget.  Additionally, he   diverted  NDDC projects and programmes to the Akoko Area of Ondo State at the expense of   the suffering oil producing  areas in the state.

“In the recent appointment made for junior and senior officers in the Commission, out of 56 officers, Hon Olubunmi Tunji Ojo used his position to employ 45 from Akoko, his federal consrituency that does not have a single drop of oil but gave only 11 to the applicants from the oil producing areas.

“Privilege information before us reveals that Hon. Tunji Ojo has been bragging to people that he doled out money to the emergence of Hon. Speaker of the House of Representatives and that the Speaker is under compulsion to consider him for any position of his choice in the 10th Assembly.

“We therefore call on the House of Representatives leadership   not to yield to pressure to retain/ reappoint Hon. Tunji Ojo as the Chairman House Committee on NDDC, rather for fairness and justice, we advocate for true representation by the lawmaker from the mandate areas of Ilaje/Ese Odo Federal Constituency, who is raised amidst the pains and suffering incurred through oil exploration.

“Bearing in mind that NDDC is an institution established to cater for environmental degradation occasioned by oil exploration in the Environmental Management Plans (EMP), as an important aspect and response to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), as best practices across the world”, the statement reads.