Abdulfattah Olajide and Hamisu Muhammad
10 April 2009
The Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was yesterday dissolved by President Umaru Musa Yar'adua. The dissolution takes effect from April 12, 2009.
A statement issued yesterday by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi said "in the new Board to be reconstituted, Bayelsa State will produce the Chairman, while Rivers State will produce the Managing Director. The Executive Directors (Finance and Administration) and (Projects) will be produced by Delta and Akwa Ibom States, respectively."
"Similarly, in line with Section 2(1) of the Act, the North-West, North-East and North-Central Zones will produce three representatives of the non-oil producing States on the Board, while oil Producing Companies will nominate a representative to the Board in accordance with Section 2(d) of the NDDC Act, 2000", he added.
Adeniyi said the NDDC Board was dissolved in fulfilment of the Section 3(1) of the NDDC Act, 2000 which provides a four-year tenure for members of the Board, other than ex-officio members, from the date of appointment at the first instance. The current Board was inaugurated on April 12, 2005.
Prior to the statement from the Presidency, there had been controversy over which of the oil producing states should produce the next NDDC managing director. While Akwa Ibom State is claiming the right to do so, Bayelsa indigenes whose state has been given the right to produce the NDDC managing director are disputing over who should be presented.
If the Act establishing the NDDC is anything to go by, Akwa Ibom should produce the next managing director. According to Section 12 of the Act, "there shall be for the Commission a managing director, and two executive directors who shall be indigenes of the oil producing areas starting with the member states of the Commission with the highest production quantum of oil and shall rotate amongst member states in the order of production."
An investigation by Daily Trust on the oil quantum of the states for the first 6 months of 2008 shows that Awka Ibom has the highest production figure with 92 million barrels, follow by Rivers and Delta with 84 million and 80 million barrels respectively.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
