- Youth Initiative for Education, Development, and Empowerment of Niger Delta has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ignore calls to dissolve NNDC board
- The group said the basis for the call to dissolve the board, was capable of disturbing the relative peace in the region
President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to ignore calls to dissolve the board of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The Youth Initiative for Education, Development, and Empowerment of Niger Delta said those responsible for the call are a former governor of Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva and minister of state for agriculture, Hon. Heineken Lokpobiri.
The group accused both men of stoking embers of conflict and pandering falsehood to destabilising the NDDC over the tenure of the present board, This Day reports.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, the president of the group, Agbonkpolor Splendour, said the argument being used to justify the pressure to dissolve the board, was capable of disturbing the relative peace in the region.
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He stressed that in recent times, notable sons of the region had thrown decency overboard and engaged in unpatriotic acts capable of hindering the renewed growth and development in Niger Delta.
Splendor said: “For any individual or group of individuals out of desperation to continue to stoke the ember of conflict and pandering falsehood over the tenure of the present board of NDDC is unhelpful and begs the question on the real issues of development in the region.
“Let us make the point and strongly too, that argument is a wasteful attempt to unilaterally rewrite the enabling law that set up the commission. Even the Section 5(3) which they are relying on is irrelevant as it clearly applies to situations in which there is a substantive board in place and a vacancy or indeed a number of vacancies happen to occur therein.
“However, nowhere in this or any other section of the Act is there even the slightest indication that such tenure completion is envisaged for the entire board or even that a new board might complete the tenure of a sacked one.
“It is curious that they failed to realise that when the commission’s board was reconstituted, it was without any other members from the board it succeeded…,and cannot possibly be envisaged under any legal parameters as liable to exit their offices with persons no longer on board."
The group therefore called on the federal government to ignore calls capable of balkanising the nation by vested interests.
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In an earlier report by NAIJcom, Alhaji Musa Saidu who is the leader of Arewa Initiative for Peaceful Co-existence in Southern Nigeria expressed displeasure over the state of development in Niger Delta.
He said the essence of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC) has been defeated if the projects in the region are abandoned.
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Source: Naija.ng
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Saturday, 2 December 2017