NDDC Board: Twists and turns of Senate confirmation

CHUKWU DAVID reports on how the Senate recently shunned its convention to confirm members of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Board

Three years ago, 2019 to be precise, President Muhammadu Buhari forwarded a list of 16 nominees to the Senate for confirmation for appointment as chairman, managing director, directors and members of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The Senate actually confirmed and returned the list to the President for inauguration but he did not inaugurate them. However, in January, 2020, President Buhari wrote to the Senate, promising to send a fresh list of nominees for the board of the commission for screening and confirmation.

He said that he decided to put on hold the inauguration of the board to enable the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the commission to conclude its forensic auditing uninterrupted. The nominees on the NDDC board confirmed by the Senate in November, 2020 but put on hold are Dr. Pius Odubu (Chairman), Bernard Okumagba (Delta – Managing Director), Otobong Ndem (Akwa Ibom – Executive Director of Projects), Maxwell Oko (Bayelsa – Executive Director of Finance and Administration), Jones Erue (Delta), Victor Ekhator (Edo), Nwogu N Nwogu (Abia) and Theodore Allison (Bayelsa). Others were Victor Antai (Akwa Ibom), Maurice Effiwat (Cross River), Olugbenga Edema (Ondo), Uchegbu Kyrian (Imo), Aisha Muhammed (North West); Shuaibu Zubairu (North East) and Abdullahu Bage (North Central).

The President, in a letter to the Red Chamber, which was read during plenary by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, explained that his action would ensure that the IMC was not distracted while carrying out its assignment of forensic audit.

Interestingly, President Buhari never constituted a substantive board of the interventionist commission as the IMC continued to manage the affairs of the agency till this year. However, after the crises and clashes of interests, which delayed the composition of the board for the commission, Buhari on Wednesday, November 23, requested the Senate to confirm the appointment of his Special Assistant on New Media, Lauretta Onochie, as the chairman of the reconstituted board of the NDDC.

Reading the President’s letter on the floor of the apex Assembly, Lawan hinted that the list also included 14 others to be appointed as managing director, executive directors and members of the board. Buhari appointed Chief Samuel Ogbokwu from Bayelsa State as Managing Director of the commission and he will serve for two years in order to complete the term of his predecessor. Other members are Dimgba Erugba, representing Abia State; Emem Willcox Wills (Akwa Ibom), Denyanbofa Dimaro (Bayelsa), Orok Duke (Cross River), Dr. Pius Odudu (Edo), Anthony Ekenne (Imo), Gbenga Edema (Ondo), Elekwachi Dimkpa (Rivers), Mohammed Kabir Abubakar (North Central), Sadiq Sule (North-West) and Prof. Tahir Mamman (North-East) The President also nominated Major-General Charles Airhiavbere (rtd) from Edo State as Executive Director, Finance and Charles Ogunmola, from Ondo State as Executive Director, Projects. It is however, pertinent to note that some of these nominations attracted protests from the constituents of host communities and some senators representing the states or areas where some of the nominees hail from. The first person, who protested against the list, was the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege.

He noted that Delta State was not fully represented on the NDDC board as read at plenary. He explained that the NDDC Act stipulates that there should be another nominee from any state that produces the chairman of the commission. The next person to protest against the list was Senator Thompson Sekibo from Rivers State, who expressed concern that President Buhari sent a fresh list to the Senate for confirmation whereas the chamber had in 2019 screened and confirmed in the President’s nominees, who were not inaugurated. While responding, the President of the Senate (Lawan) assured Omo- Agege, that the attention of President Buhari would be drawn to the issue before the parliament would start the screening exercise.

On the issue raised by Sekibo, he noted that it have been overtaken by events because the President had written to the Senate to explain reasons the earlier confirmed nominees were not inaugurated. After two weeks that Buhari asked the Red Chamber to confirm Onochie and others, Lawn referred the screening of the nominees to the Committee on Niger Delta Affairs to work on it and submit its report for consideration and approval. The screening exercise was presided over by the Acting Chairman of the Committee, Senator Amos Bulus, who stood in for the substantive Chairman, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, who was convicted in July for money laundering. During the screening, members of the committee resolved that the President should replace Charles Ogunmola as Executive Director (Projects).

The resolve of the panel was informed by the position of the three senators representing Ondo State. The senators, Nicholas Tofowomo (PDP Ondo South), Ayo Akinyelure (PDP Ondo Central) and Ajayi Boroffice (APC Ondo North) unanimously opposed Ogunmola’s confirmation. The lawmakers had written a petition, which they addressed to the President of the Senate and was also read during the screening of the new NDDC Board nominees by the acting chairman of the committee. In their petition, the lawmakers argued that the Act of the National Assembly, which established the NDDC, was breached with the nomination of Ogunmola, who they affirmed as not an indigene of the oil producing area of the state.

They urged Governor Rotimi Akeredolu to liaise with the paramount ruler of Ugbo Kingdom, in the oil-rich Ilaje community of the state, Oba Frederick Akinruntan, to present an indigene from the area to President Buhari for appointment. According to them, Ogunmola, who is an indigene of Owo town in Ondo North Senatorial District, is not qualified to hold the position based on the provision of Section 12(1) of the NDDC Act. Senators Tofowomo and Akinyelure, who spoke to newsmen on the matter, said that their colleague, Boroffice, who is from Ogunmola’s Senatorial District, signed the joint petition because he understood the implication of clearing the nominee, being the Deputy Leader of the Senate. They cautioned that there might be a breakdown of law and order in the oil bearing communities of Ondo State if Ogunmola was imposed on the state.

Tofowomo said: “In the last 22 years, Ondo State has not benefited from any managerial position at the NDDC. Now, they have recommended someone from Owo town, a non-oil producing area in the northern senatorial district of the state as executive director in charge of projects. Some members of the committee also punctured the nomination of Onochie, who they argued, is not an indigene of the oil producing part of Delta State.

The controversy generated by this resulted in a heated debate among the lawmakers during the screening. In an effort to douse the tension provoked by the issue of indigeneship of the two nominees, another member from the oil producing area of Delta State, Senator James Manager, said that all the contentious issues would be tackled at the executive session. Similarly, while making his contribution at the screening, the Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, reminded the committee that Onochie was not the first person from a non-oil producing area that would be appointed as NDDC chairman.

“We need to be more guided. We have appointed a chairman from our state, who is not from the local government where oil is pro-duced. He is Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, and nobody can tell us to reject this one,” he said. The opposition against the confirmation of Onochie and Ogunmola, notwithstanding, the nation’s apex legislative Assembly, jettisoned some of the rules and conventions guiding its operations and confirmed the nominations of the duo for appointment into the NDDC board. The Senate also confirmed eleven other nominees as members of the board, including the managing director, executive directors and members of the commission. The Red Chamber also confirmed the appointments of 13 out of the 15 presidential nominees for the board, following the consideration and adoption of the report of its Committee on Niger Delta Affairs.

Senator Bulus, who presented the committee’s report to the Senate, claimed that members were satisfied with the performance of the nominees during their screening. Senators Seriake Dickson (PDP, Bayelsa State) and Nicholas Tofowomo (PDP, Ondo State), drew the attention of the Chamber to the petitions and protests against Onochie and Ogunmola but they ignored by the President of the Senate and other lawmakers, leading to the confirmation of the two nominees after the consideration and approval of the report by the majority of the members. Dickson, who noted in his objection to Onochie and some other nominees alleged not to come from oil producing areas, warned that bad precedents should not be laid with such confirmation.

He said: “In as much as we want the NDDC Board re-constituted for efficient and effective performance of the commission as far as development of Niger Delta Region is concerned, we should not allow violation of the extant laws of the commission in anyway.

“Some of the nominees already screened and recommended for confirmation by the Senate Committee on Niger Delta Affairs, are not from oil producing areas which are clear violations of relevant provisions of the NDDC Act.” The President of the Senate, who quickly interrupted him, told him to talk for himself and not for other senators or states. Senator Tofowomo, who made a similar observation and objection, expressed serious concern that the three senators from Ondo State kicked against the South-West nominee, Ogunmola, but unfortunately it was not mentioned in the report, lamenting that there was no justice in the whole process.

Lawan, in a similar manner, quietly ignored him by calling on the Majority Leader, Senator Ibrahim Gobir, to move for Committee of the Whole, where all the nominees except two who were absent from screening, were confirmed. The two nominees whose appointments were not confirmed due their failure to appear for screening were Odudu from Edo and Okanne from Imo State. Lawan, in his remarks, said: “The confirmed chairman and members of the NDDC board should hit the ground running. So much time has been lost. I believe that from now till when their tenure will expire, they have a lot of work to do. The NDDC as we all know is an interventionist agency created by government in year 2000.

“For those who will take over the mantle of leadership, please let’s really see the NDDC as a development institution rather than a cash cow. The new management should ensure that the communities this institution is supposed to work for, really benefit from its existence and the resources.” While there is no gainsaying that human societies and organisations are ruled or governed by laws and/resolutions, most times, the laws are written down to provide guides to decision-making processes and conducts of groups and their members while resolutions are usually on-the-spot collective decisions of group members.

The convention of the Senate says that if two out of the three Senators representing a state reject any presidential nomination or proposal for a particular state, the Senate should step down that nomination or proposal pending further consultations for reconciliation.