Niger Delta Group Exposes Lokpobiri, Sylva’s Subversive Moves Against NDDC Board
BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The Youth Initiative for Education, Development and Empowerment of Niger Delta (YIFEDEND), on Thursday decried the activities of the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, accusing him of being railroaded to destabalise the good works of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The Youth group therefore vowed that the people of the region and the rest of the country will resist any attempt to subvert their interest with selfish elitists’ interests that do not take them into consideration.
President of YIFEDEND, Ambassador Agbonkpolor Splendor, who stated the group’s position at a press conference in Abuja, described as reprehensible the activities of Senator Lokpobiri and his taskmaster through their consistent and misguided attacks on Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba as Chairman and Nsima Ekere as Managing Director of the Commission.
The YIFEDEND condemned the insistence by Lokpobiri that the present NDDC Board’s tenure should expire December 2017 on the basis of the spurious claim that the said Board was appointed to complete the tenure of the one it succeeded.
Ambassador Splendor, accompanied by Comrade Danesi Momoh and Dominic Ogarku, further said that it is embarrassing that Lokpobiri and former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva rather than supporting the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari on the NDDC Board, decided to ridicule the President before right thinking Nigerians as well as showing utter disrespect for the office and all that it represents.
According to him, “One needs to commend President Buhari for the clarity that the sacked Board did not complete its full tenure, and so appropriate and equitable to give the various states their due in the new Board. President Buhari’s action could not, therefore, be seen as a fulfilment of any legal obligations specifically imposed by section 5, subsection 3 of the enabling law.
“Only mischief makers will look at it otherwise. He acted in fulfilment of his power to appoint the Board, under the Act, and pursuant to his discretion to constitute the Board howsoever he deems fit, in so far as he does not break the law in exercising that discretion.
“For the avoidance of doubt, what the Act provides for is a vacancy existing on the Board and for such to be filled for the person to complete the tenure of the former occupant, not a situation where an entire Board is dissolved and an acting Managing Director had even served.
He commended the present Board of the NDDC under the leadership of Senator Ndoma-Egba and Nsima Ekere for the exceptional job of clearing the backlog of unpaid contractors while ensuring that projects are spread across the entire region to uplift the living standards of the people of the region.
Splendor therefore warned former Governor Sylva and Senator Lokpobiri to desist from attempting to subvert the gains of change in the region but should cooperate with the current management of NDDC for the progress of the region.
