Leadership (Abuja)
Chuks Ohuegbe
14 August 2008
The crisis rocking the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is assuming a complex dimension, the latest being protest rallies to hold in Abuja, Yenagoa and Port Harcourt, requesting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the Executive Director, Finance of the Commission, Mr. Timi Alaibe.
LEADERSHIP investigations confirmed that a youth leader of the main opposition party in Bayelsa State will lead the demonstrators, who during the Abuja protest march, would among other things send "a strongly worded" petition to the anti-graft body urging it to investigate Alaibe.
Only recently the Chairman of NDDC, Ambassador Edem Edem was relieved of his potfolio over his involvement in voodoo-related activities.
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in the aftermath had directed that the NDDC member from Akwa Ibom State replaces Ambassador Edem in acting capacity.
LEADERSHIP checks confirmed that the exit of Amb. Edem, who hails from Akwa Ibom State and whose tenure will soon end, meant that the next chairman of NDDC will come from any other oil producing state that is yet to produce a chairman.
Since the creation of the commission in 2000 by the Obasanjo administration, only two member states have so far produced Chairmen. They are Abia and Akwa-Ibom States. Chief Onyema Ugochukwu was the pioneer chairman of NDDC.
On the planned protest march, already T-shirts and banners have been printed. Some of the banners calling for the dissolution of the NDDC Board.
Our investigations further revealed that interest groups within the corridors of power in Yenagoa, Port-Harcourt and the nation's capital are believed to be behind these protests.
A top official of the Rivers State government is believed to be angling for the position of managing director of NDDC; to use it as a launching pad for his gubernatorial ambition when Governor Rotimi Amaechi leaves office.
Also, some political loyalists in Bayelsa State have been promised that the possibility of compensating one of them with the plum job of chairman of NDDC is on the card.
LEADERSHIP also learnt that discontent is between the office of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and that of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) on the developments and involvement in the NDDC saga
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