Gov Wike – “NDDC Is A Cash Cow For Politicians”

The River State Governor, Nyesom Wike has said that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is a Cash Cow and source of wealth for some corrupt politicians contrary to its original mandate.

And stressing further he said, “my concern is everybody knows that NDDC was set up for the development of the region, unfortunately, they have turned it to a different thing, in my own election, NDDC brought N10 billion cash to fight against me.”

The governor’s reaction being the latest among several others following the probe into the financial impropriety of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the NDDC between February and May 2020 by lawmakers in the National Assembly. This led to the discovery of more scam in the agency which sparked a series of drama and blame games between government officials and lawmakers.

In his reaction to this recent probe of the NDDC by the lawmakers, Wike says it was one-sided as the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the agency led by Professor Kemebradikumo Pondei ought to be investigated as well. “When they are talking about probing IMC, I said what are you doing only with IMC, what about the other committees Professor Kemebradikumo and the rest of them. They (the lawmakers) have not invited us and why I don’t want to go is that what am I doing with the IMC the governor queried.”

He said, “I am one governor who challenged the NDDC; we went to the Federal High Court, the Federal High Court returned the matter to the State High Court. NDDC went to appeal and we won them and at the State High Court, we have won them.

Again, Wike accused the agency of embarking on projects in Rivers without the consent of the state government. “You cannot go to a state and begin to carry out projects without the permission of the state government, you don’t know what their plans are. You can’t come into my state to disturb my development plan, you must let me know.”

Governor Wike believes that in order to reverse the fortune of the agency, technocrats and not politicians should be placed in charge of the commission to enable it function effectively.