House panel shakes as Akpabio exposes NASS members as NDDC contractors

By KEMI KASUMU

It was like a case of scattered table for the House of Representatives investigating corruption in Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), on Monday, as Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, opened up on how members of National Assembly were NDDC contractors.

Akpabio, who appeared after the Acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei, fainted amidst intense interrogation by the lawmakers, told his questioners that most of the contracts that occasioned corruption in the agency were awarded to their colleagues especially the man who was just replaced as chairman of the House investigative panel, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, and the man who replaced him.

Chief Akpabio, who is immediate past governor of Akwa Ibom State and immediate past Senate Minority Leader, stormed the House with evidences full of facts and figures and reeled what the NDDC problem really was and knocked it out to the face of the investigators in a way that saw a woman member of the panel high table detonating a bomb of scream on top of her voice asking the minister if he was not a member of the National Assembly before.

Although it was not clear why the Honourable Member screamed at the Senator-turned member of the executive, Akpabio, it was however obvious that the investigating legislators were not comfortable he was about to reveal on television to the eyes of the world what they actually cooked that the whole house went on fire.

The then uncommon governor, senator and now uncommon minister, as he is fondly called, knocked and scattered the table, saying most of the jobs of NDDC are being given to legislators. The chairman had to stop him.

The Member, a woman, asked Akpabio: “What do you mean by we (lawmakers) benefit from the NDDC?”

Akpabio replied her: “Most of contracts of the NDDC go to the members of the National Assembly. Ask your former Chairman and the present one, they both know.”

At this critical stage, the Panel Chairman obstructively interjected, hitting the gavel endlessly on the table, and said: “Honourable Minister! Honourable Minister!! Honourable Minister!!! It’s okay, it’s okay.  Off your mic. Honorable minister it’s enough,” then Akpabio stopped and started looking at the panel members as they waggled over his yet to be let loose exposition of what the National Assembly has ignored about the NDDC corruption which many prominent Niger Delta leaders like Chief Edwin Clerk had written its leadership about.

Senator Akpabio went ahead to deny all the allegations leveled against him by former Acting MD of the NDDC, Gbene Joi Nunieh, saying during the public hearing at the House of Representatives that he did not hijack the Forensic Audit of the NDDC neither did he sack any sack of the commission.

Other things he said at the panel today included the serious back and forth with committee members as they threw more erratic questions at him just like they did to the agency’s Acting MD who fainted earlier.

Senator Akpabio said the job of the minister of Niger Delta Affairs is to supervise and not to run the NDDC and told his questioners that he had no presidential ambition except that he was only doing his job for the good of the nation and his good Niger Delta impoverished innocent people to get better as intended with the establishment of NDDC.

He denied the Nunieh’s N10 billion allegation saying he did not at any time asked any staff of the NDDC to bring him such amount of money and that there can be nobody who can come out to say he ever paid him any naira as the minister and he did no contract for the agency.

On the N40 billion the National Assembly probe commonly talks about, Senator Akpabio said it is not possible for any N40 billion to miss from the account of NDDC because the agency operates no other account than Treasury Single Account (TSA) and which is with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to him, the last IMC (under Nunieh) spend N8 billion and put the total expenditure at N23 billion, adding that even before the coming of Coronavirus, 60 percent of the commission’s budget was on medical expenses.

Chief Akpabio made it clear to his questioners that since he came in as Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, he has signed only three contracts and that they were contracts for Forensic Audit of the NDDC, purchase of vehicles and COVID-19.

The minister said the NDDC remains backward the way it is today because of lack of monitoring and lack of supervision and then assured the panel that NDDC files are not missing and that they have all been handed over to the Forensic Audition. He however said he was not aware how much the NDDC paid for the Forensic Audit.

Akapbio reiterated his earlier position that 60 percent of NDDC contracts were awarded to National Assembly members, which caused upset among the lawmakers who did not want him to expose that area of the NDDC problem.

He appealed that there was the need for cooperation of the National Assembly to stop the splitting of NDDC contracts and to reposition the Commission.

President Muhammadu Buhari sacked the Gbene Joi Nunieh-led Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the NDDC on the recommendation of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Akpabio, in February this year, reason which  Mr. Joseph Akpofure, a Niger Delta rights activist revealed in a report published in The DEFENDER on Sunday.

There are some elements in the Niger Delta communities who for 19 years of establishment have assumed NDDC as the drainpipes for the maintenance of their economic and political projects.  They would go to any length in crushing any attempt to stop them continuing with using the supposedly interventionist agency for that purpose.

There have been complaints which led to President Buhari’s ordering the Forensic Audit of the Commission and then appointing Professor Kemedrakumo Pondei as Acting Managing Director of the NDDC overseeing the probe period.  The complaints included that those who were responsible for the corruption in the place had already installed themselves, strategically, into the National Assembly and that among them are ranking senators and members of the House of Representatives who are in charge of the NASS committees on Niger Delta and NDDC.

The Executive Director, Projects, of the NDDC, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, once said on a single day before the coming of this IMC, that N50 billion was paid to some NGOs for no justifiable reasons.

It was later found out that the NGOs, who dominated the traditional, online and social media misrepresenting the real situation in the NDDC with intent to discredit the President Buhari’s ordered clean up process, might have taken the money for media and publicity and other purposes.

There has also been reported case of how they were pressing the current IMC to pay for 132 jobs not seen to have been done.

The next thing was the insistence that National Assembly would be the ones to constitute the probes of the NDDC corruption and, as reported severally before now, they are doing all things possible to ensure the Forensic Audit does not see the light of the day.

Meanwhile, Honourable Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, has stepped down as chairman of the NDDC investigative committee of the nation’s House of Representatives.

Tunji-Ojo’s stepping down from the seat followed Thursday’s statement by Professor Pondei before he walked out on the committee saying that he would not speak to committee headed by the same member that is one of lawmakers who hijacked the same NDDC’s projects they are probing.

Prof. Pondei had said, “We in NDDC are not comfortable with the Chairman of this committee that presides over this matter. He is an interested party and we do not believe that the NDDC will get justice because he cannot sit down and judge his own case.

“We have no any issue to appear as we have appeared before the Senate ad hoc committee but, as long as he remains there, we cannot make any presentation,” Professor Pondei said and then he and his team stood up and left.

NDDC corruption, role of lawmakers

The DEFEDER had reported on June 8, 2020 that the dust raised by some members of National Assembly over contracts purportedly awarded to Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, by Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) may have finally settled as the Commission said it neither awarded any contract to the former governor during his days as Senate Minority Leader nor was there any evidence from its records to substantiate such claims by no other than Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta.

Rather, the claimant Senator Nwaoboshi, by evidences from its records, is shown as the one that used 11 fronts to secure contracts from the NDDC which he either did not execute or those supplies made were resold to Delta State Government.  That was the clarification as contained in the press conference address of Mr. Charles Obi Odili, the Director, Corporate Affairs of the NDDC.

Odili said the Commission’s records show that Senator Nwaoboshi used 11 front companies – owned or traceable to him – “to secure a contract of N3.6 billion in September 2016, in what is perhaps the biggest single case of looting of the Commission’s resources.”  Odili also listed the companies and business names of the 11 fronts to prove that he was not being fictitious.

He therefore expressed that such a man like Nwaoboshi, currently sitting as Chairman Senate Committee on Niger Delta insisting on probing the same NDDC he helped make disfunctional through the stated fraudulent activities, should not stand.

The NDDC spokesman added that “until Senator Nwaoboshi can absolve himself of his role in the looting of the resources of the Commission, he should step aside from any investigative activity against the Commission. NDDC deserves the freedom to deliver on its mandate.”

The statement read in parts: “Our attention has been drawn to a statement by Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) awarded a contract of N500 million to the Honourable Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, which he did not execute.

“The Commission wishes to state that it has searched through its records and there is no evidence of any contract awarded to Senator Akpabio or any company associated with him by the NDDC. From our findings, the person who has questions to answer to the Niger Delta People is Senator Nwaoboshi.

“Our records show that Senator Nwaoboshi used 11 front companies (owned or traceable to him) to secure a contract of N3.6 billion in September 2016, in what is perhaps the biggest single case of looting of the Commission’s resources.

In a swift reaction, Nwaoboshi not only denied the NDDC’s exposition of his alleged corruption against the agency but also threatened him and even went ahead to threaten President Buhari’s Media Aide, Lauretta Onochie, who insisted he must answer questions on the 11 companies he allegedly used as fronts, to retract their statements within 48 hours or face court suits.

It is now well over 42 days after his 48 hours ultimatum, neither NDDC’s Odili nor Buhari’s Onochie has retracted their statements and Nwaoboshi has not instituted any court suit against them.