Urhobo Youth Group carpets Calls for Sack of NDDC Board, lauds Buhari on Niger Delta

The Urhobo Youths Employment Initiative has condemned calls from certain quarters for the sack of the present board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, describing them as “ill-motivated and driven by corrupt considerations” on the part of those making such calls. While addressing newsmen yesterday, in Effurun, Delta State, the group, through its Publicity Secretary, Comrade Efemena Victor Ikutegbe described those making the calls as “mischievous persons with poor knowledge of law seeking to unseat a performing board to make way for questionable characters and discredited politicians to return the NDDC to its dark days under the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.”

Insisting that the present board had so far discharged its mandate to the commendation of the Urhobos and numerous other ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta, the group asserted that “the Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, and Nsima Ekere led board was handpicked by President Muhammadu Buhari to bring genuine change to the longsuffering  people of the Niger Delta for a full tenure of four years renewable upon performance in accordance with the NDDC Act.”

Wondering why those it described as “PDP moles in APC are hand in gloves with PDP elements to truncate the change agenda in the Niger Delta” the group claimed that it was “aware of the two individuals from Bayelsa State at the forefront of such treachery and anti-party activities”, as ti called on the national leadership of the APC to “immediately call them to order.”

According to the group “the current tenure of the present board expires in 2020 and after that, both the Chairman and Managing Director of the commission will emerge from Delta according to the law.”

While commending President Buhari for “appointing men of the high caliber of Senator Ndoma-Egba, Nsima Ekere, Samuel Adjogbe and their other able colleagues into the board,” the group claimed their appointments was “a testament to Mr. President’s commitment to a new way of doing things in the Niger Delta in line with his change agenda for the good of our people”. Describing the membership of the board as “a formidable compliment of round pegs in round holes,” the group urged the President to “completely ignore those calling for the abridgement of the board’s tenure and to continue to follow the law as he has been doing so far.”