Legislative Contractors: Graphical representation of NDDC web of corruption
By KEMI KASUMU
In recent history, leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) threatened Alhaji Lai Mohammed with legal action if he did not name corrupt politicians among them and thus landed themselves in big trouble.
That has just replayed itself this time in the Niger Delta related saga rocking the Ninth National Assembly of Senator Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as their decision, said to be worse than Saraki/Dogara-led Eighth National Assembly, to shield their members hugely accused of corruption against humanity and land of the sub-region is making them to lose the confidence of the people.
Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led House of Representatives may have therefore touched a female lunatic in the breast when he threatened the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio with “Full wrath of the House” if he failed to name lawmakers who are directly or indirectly contractors of the bedeviled Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
As if he had been overpowered by the redline publicly drawn by the Speaker at plenary, Akpabio let the Gbajabiamila’s 48-hour ultimatum rest well for the last weekend only for the world to wake up into a Black Monday that gripped the Nigeria’s National Assembly when all the media, print, online and social media, agog with big blow that the Speaker, as at the time of filing the this report, was yet to recover from. He had been accused to have dodged letting the public know his members were actually indicted and listed in a letter sent to him by the Minister he had “arrogantly” threatened.
The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) had let the cat out of the bag when it revealed to the press in Abuja on Sunday July 26, 2020 when it accused Femi Gbajabiamila of deliberately refusing to let the public know that the letter sent to him by Akpabio actually indicted and listed over 30 members of the National Assembly who are beneficiaries of the NDDC contracts racketeering.
Akpabio listed, among others, a senator generally believed to be using NDDC to prepare for 2023 governorship of a very senior ranking senator and himself as his running mate ahead election in Delta State, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi who got the second highest number of contracts for 53 projects. The Minister also named Hon Nicholas Mutu with highest contracts for 74 projects, Senator Mathew Urhogide 6 projects, Senator James Manager 6 projects, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, who would always with Abaribe, embarassed President Muhammadu Buhari as ‘incompetent’ and called for his impeachment at plenaries, as getting contracts for 19 projects and the chairman of the House panel investigating the NDDC corruption, Hon Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo with contracts for 19 projects.
They are, for clarity, itemised below:
1. Sen.Peter Nwaoboshi (NDDC Committee Chairman), 53 projects.
2. Hon Nicholas Mutu, 74 projects.
3. Sen. Mathew Urhogide 6 projects.
4. Sen. James Manager, 6 projects.
5. Sen. Samuel Anyanwu, 19 projects
6. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, 19 projects.
In the meantime, members of the public, now getting the clearer picture of the NDDC corruption these National Assembly leadership and their members had misrepresented dominating all the media, are wondering how come the arrogant display of particularly Femi Gbajabiamila who, along with others, said Goodswill Akpabio was bluffing.
“The leadership of both The Senate and House of Representatives should simply do the needful,” a concerned Nigeria said.
Nigerians within and outside the Niger Delta are now calling in one another to stand with the clean-up process that President Buhari is using Akpabio and the Pondei-led NDDC IMC to achieve by the Forensic Audit the alleged “thieves” do not want to see the light of the day in the interventionist agency.
