Niger/Delta Women Reject Interim Management Committee For NDDC

By Ayodele Oni

Women in the Niger Delta on Friday condemned promoters of Interim Management Committee, (IMC) for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

This is coming just as President Mohamadu Buhari approved the appointment of Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu (retd) as Interim Administrator of the Amnesty Programme.

The appointment was disclosed via a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina.

According to the women, “The interim management committee will breed hostility among the oil states in the country. The inauguration of substantive board is the best possible course under existing circumstances’’

They also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to end one man or a three man rule in the commission.

At a gathering in Port Harcourt, the women appealed to leaders of key nations and world statesmen to implore Buhari to constitute the commission’s board.

“It will be a tragedy if Mr President let himself be diverted from consideration of the NDDC Board by the proposal of another interim management committee.

“Such a tendency shows a singular lack of understanding of the region’s problems and a failure to remember the larger purposes for which the NDDC was established. The composition of a substantive board is primary and fundamental’’

 They also appealed to presidential candidates, traditional rulers and religious leaders to impress it on President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a board for the Commission.

The women described interim management committee agitators as predators, destroyers and zombies.

A statement  by the President of Niger Delta Women in Politics (NDWIP), Josephine Ekong said without the board, it would be practically impossible to assume a leading role in attempting to bring about a lasting peace and development in the oil rich region’’

‘’At inception, NDDC gave the Niger Delta people new confidence and a tremendous sense of regional solidarity. It taught the people the meaning of development.

 “We will have nothing to do with the interim management committee or another sole administrator.

‘’The delay in constituting the board and the zero implementation of the recommendations of the NDDC Forensic Audit Report are enough to move the people of the region to anger.

‘’The obligation of the government is to supply the focal point where problems could be integrated and resolved.

“The way out lies not in attempting to sack Akwa and putting in place interim management committee but in completely inaugurating the commission’s board.”