The Executive Director Projects of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr Cairo Ojougboh, on Friday, damned the ongoing probe of the commission by the National Assembly, where it was alleged that lawmakers ruined the agency for 20 years through proxy contract awards.
This was even as he finally listed names of NDDC contractors among the lawmakers and provided details of what they got. He insisted that the National Assembly members were out to ensure the Commission does not achieve its set goal overseeing successful Forensic Audit for the clean-up of the interventionist agency for the good of Niger Delta region.
He said the probe was masterminded to witchhunt and dissuade members of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the NDDC from delivering on its terms of assignment, which primarily is to oversee the Forensic Audit for the clean-up of the Commission.
According to the medical doctor with passion for documents and records keeping, the National Assembly was most disturbed that the office of the Minister of the Niger Delta was calling the shot at the commission, which to them, was unusual.
Ojougboh spoke at the palace of the Asagba of Asaba, Obi Chike Edozien, in Asaba, Delta State capital, before inaugurating the police equipment fund, worth N450 million.
He alleged that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federal (SGF) and the National Assembly had reportedly liquidated the commission in the past 20 years.
He said the IMC came to being to sanitise the system by mopping-up the messy situation the commission has been plunged into.
“I don’t believe I should play politics in the palace. The truth must be told. For 20 years, there was nothing on ground to show for the existence of the commission. IMC is out to make a difference, this they don’t want. The money they told 1,411 persons to refund was paid to very many persons.
“The Senators are the contractors of NDDC. As we speak, all the crimes they perpetrated in the past 20 years in NDDC were done through the office of the SGF. We have the files of how the National Assembly ruined the commission.
“We will not allow this criminality to be returned to that office.
“They tampered with many budgets of the commission, that is criminal! What kind of country are we? Their extent of criminality is to be awarding contracts to themselves. We have the list, it is in my car as we speak.
“We have it through Mutu (Nicholas, a Delta House of Representatives member), to Manager (James, the Senator for Delta South), to Nwaoboshi (Peter, the Senator for Delta North). Most of the payments we made were to National Assembly nominees.
“I have not stolen any money. The money paid into my account was for the trip I was to embark upon but was postponed as a result of COVID-19,” Dr. Ojougboh finally damned Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila by giving list of NDDC contractors among lawmakers and details of contracts they got.
He urged the monarch to protect the interest of the Anioma nation, the oil producing area of Delta State, the Niger Delta region and prevent the National Assembly from subsuming the commission under the office of the SGF again.
The monarch, who described Ojougboh as a “well-known and dedicated fighter in Nigeria politics”, said he perceived something more than probe to the impasse between the National Assembly and the NDDC.
