Guardian NDDC and predatory governance MONDAY, 26 AUGUST 2013 00:00 EDITOR OPINION - EDITORIAL GIVEN the deeply entrenched system of abuse that has attended the operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for which a new acting chief executive has just been appointed, it is almost futile to expect any good report from the agency. Given the “culture of expectations” amongst the regional elite, pertaining to NDCC appointments and the on-going scramble for slots, it is also almost pointless to expect that a new Board will make any difference when it is eventually appointed by the President. It is however appropriate to remind President Goodluck Jonathan that the NDCC was created in 2000 by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo to bring development and welfare benefits to the Niger Delta rather than provide additional resources to recruit political allies or further the political careers or personal material aspirations of the elite of the oil-producing states and their acolytes elsewhere. It is generally believed that Nigerians have little to show for the over $340 billion that the country has earned from oil exports over four decades. Citizens, as opposed to the elite, of the Niger Delta from where Nigeria’s oil is derived have received an even worse deal, gaining little besides environmental degradation and impoverishment from the oil production carried out in their land. From the early 1990s, vast sums of money have been transferred to the Niger Delta through preferential fiscal policies and institutions such as the NDDC to address the pervasive poverty existing amidst staggering wealth and the deep sense of injustice it bred in the region. Between 2009 and 2012, about N880.8 billion (or $5.8 billion) was budgeted for the NDDC. This is a huge sum of money, especially if the fact that the oil producing states have other sources of preferential transfer such as the 13 per cent derivation principle of allocating funds to states from the Federation Account and the budget of the Ministry of the Niger Delta, which is N63. 3 billion for 2013 is also considered. Visionary leaders, in Abuja and also in the Niger Delta States, with these huge sums, could have envisaged creating a regional economic hub that would have the potential to rival Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. In fact, they could have modeled it after the serenity and orderliness of Dubai. The funds that have accrued to the Niger Delta in the last 13 years should have gone some way in creating the infrastructure for a globally competitive region; industrial parks for manufacturing, modern ports linking them to markets in Africa and beyond, a booming petrochemical sector, world-class tourist destinations etc. The sort of bureaucracy required to attain this vision could have slowly but steadily been built. This bureaucracy would have had sufficient funds to train an efficient and globally competitive workforce. It would have been possible to bring in the skills of the most qualified Nigerians and expatriates to accelerate the pace of development as cities or states like Dubai and Qatar have done. Honest and efficient investment of NDDC funds and other preferential transfers to the Niger Delta should have attracted even greater private sector investment as Nigerian and global businesses compete to secure a foothold in such a place. It is on record that since 2003 Nigeria had twice launched a plan, the Niger Delta Development Master Plan, to transform the Niger Delta into a model and pole of development. International development institutions like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank were enthused about the plan and would have been able to mobilize significant additional resources to realize the objectives of peace and development in the Niger Delta. Sadly, the Master Plan has become another wretched monument to the mediocrity and indeed depravity that afflict virtually all aspects and levels of governance in Nigeria. The comprehensive venality of Nigeria’s elite class has produced untold misery. Indeed, the real tragedy of Nigeria is the utter inability of this wastrel class to shelter any project or institution from its own predatory dispositions. Nigeria has remained retarded while nations like India have become a force to reckon with in the world despite their own histories of corruption and sectarian divisions precisely because certain institutions were insulated to serve sacred national goals. The failure to make any serious effort to ensure that the NDDC rededicates itself to its mandate is one of the greatest failures of the present administration. The probe of the NDDC in 2011 revealed what many Nigerians had long suspected: the organization had primarily functioned to award contracts to front companies of those lucky to be appointed to manage its affairs. More than 280 projects, many of them costing over N1 billion each were abandoned. Successive Governing Boards would rather award new multi-billion naira contracts rather than complete abandoned ones. The report of the probe reads like a work of financial crime fiction. Directors clandestinely transferred tens of thousands of dollars between the various NDDC’s Nigerian and foreign accounts. Court cases were contrived against the NDDC, to be withdrawn once external lawyers were paid hundreds of millions of naira. The government had abolished NDDC’s predecessor, the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) in 1996 after its chairman even fled Nigeria to evade accounting for the corruption, which had overwhelmed it. As the replacement of OMPADEC, NDDC has also failed to curb corruption and there is no evidence that the 2011 probe of the Commission has had any positive impact. Cronyism and the preoccupation with the sharing of government positions have prevented Nigerians from focusing on accountability and performance in governance, especially in the case of the Niger Delta and all the interventionist designs for its rescue. The abysmal failure of the NDDC should make it clear to Nigerians that the solution to predatory governance and the deep poverty and inequality it creates is for all Nigerians to unite in demanding accountability from their leaders. The time is now!
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 06:28:00 +0000
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