NDDC founding activist endorses Buhari’s nominees, calls for better NDDC funding

A professor, activist, and one of the perceived founders of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Jasper Jumbo, has endorsed the new team submitted to National Assembly.

He has however called for an uncommon machinery to transform the Commission to internally assess and recognise itself and make it a more result-oriented organisation had been advocated.

Jumbo made the call during the week when he spoke with the BusinessDay at Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa. The professor, who was reacting to the new list of the helmsmen for the interventionist agency, submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari, said it was capable of bringing change.

He commanded President Buhari for the changes to be made in the manpower development of the NDDC and described it as a right step in the right direction.

The NDDC, he insisted, was long overdue for both internal changes and recognitions needed to effect the desired needs and expectations of the oil rich region but with poor people.

The NDDC, he pointing out, was previously aiding and killing enterprises in the region rather than fostering them. According to him, the bureaucracy in the NDDC in the past was frustrating; especially the contractors who he said were made to pass through procedures in processing their contract that last up to nine months before payments were made.

This, he noted, was not good enough for the contractors who he said took loans from the banks that in turn took their charges and left the contractors with nothing.

The incoming managers, he advised, should apply their mind to change the internal bureaucracy to give room and effect the needed change to be in line with the president’s change mantras.

Jumbo also called on the president to as a matter of urgency increase the annual budget allocation of the NDDC so as to cope with its financial obligation of providing adequate infrastructural development in the region.

He noted that the region has already failed because of poor budget provision and that for the NDDC to fulfil its mandate to the people that the budget needs to be increased and released to the commission on time.

He stated: “The federal government interventionist agency has not done enough to meet its obligations as a result of shortage of fund and unless there is an increase allocation, the Commission would have no option but to fail in carrying out its statutory duties to the people of the region.”

Jumbo added; “I urge the president not to mind those who do not love the Niger Delta and increase the budget because this is the only agency that touches the lives of the people at the grassroots and through which we could get to the grassroots. And by these increases, he could win the love of the MEND and the Avengers, and in the process get peace in the region”.