UNLOCKING PROSPERITY Ifeatu Agbu
Niger Delta Development Commission keys into the transformation agenda, writes
The rapid development of the Niger Delta region, which is the core mandate of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has been given an impetus since the 4th Governing Board mounted the saddle on Monday, December 16, 2013 at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. President Goodluck Jonathan had charged the board to “complete all on-going projects handled by the previous boards before embarking on new ones.” The presidential mandate was meant to make the commission to play a key role in the transformation agenda of the federal government.
Thus, from the outset, Mr. Bassey Dan-Abia, the Managing Director, made it clear that members of the new board were fully conscious of the expectations of the people of the Niger Delta region and as such had resolved to work as a team. “We need to engage ourselves in a soul-searching exercise, so as to chart a new course for the region,” he said.
Speaking in a similar vein, Senator Bassey EwaHenshaw, the Chairman of the Board, said that the board would spare no effort in advancing the transformation agenda of the federal government. “The president charged us to make a remarkable difference in the lives of the people of the Niger Delta. We shall not disappoint him,” he declared.
The board got into full gear and started inaugurating projects that had been completed as well as monitoring the on-going ones. The managing director, who confirmed that no less than 1, 500 projects were ready for launching, underscored the importance of regular project inspections. “We cannot stay in the office to develop the Niger Delta,” he said. In the field work, the managing director was usually accompanied by the executive director projects, Mr. Tuoyo Omatsuli and the executive director, Finance and Administration, Dr. Henry Ogiri.
This new approach seems to indicate a paradigm shift at the NDDC. It was General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff [1989-93] and the first African American to be appointed Secretary of State, who wrote about getting the right calibre of people to deliver good results. For him, “organisation doesn’t really accomplish anything. Plans don’t accomplish anything either. Theories of management don’t matter. Endeavours succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.”
Indeed, it did not take long for the good tidings to start manifesting. The board set the ball rolling with the handing over a 522-bed space modern hostel to the authorities of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) in Imo State, on February 5, 2014.
Senator Ewa-Henshaw, who was performing his first official function along with other members of the NDDC board, said that the commission would step up partnership with tertiary institutions in the Niger Delta region for the advancement of research, teaching and learning, stating that the training of students in science and technology “falls directly in line with the transformation agenda of Mr. President.”
The contributions of the NDDC to the education sector were not limited to infrastructure. According to the commission’s managing director, the interventionist agency had in recent times provided “science equipment to our secondary schools; retrained 500 science teachers and 225 principals and vice-principals, for capacity enhancement in schools management and administration. It has also provided 3,600 sets of computers to all the polytechnics in the region and awarded 1,021 overseas scholarships for Master degrees and PhD programmes in engineering and sciences, including medicine to students of the nine NDDC states, in the best universities across the world.”
Of course, the NDDC’s provision of the right environment for learning in tertiary institutions in the region was not restricted to FUTO. It also undertook the building of 18 other similar hostels in universities and polytechnics across the Niger Delta. On March 19 and November 13, 2014, it was the turn of the University of Benin and the Delta State University, Abraka, respectively to celebrate NDDC’s state-of-the-art hostels. They were inaugurated by Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Governor of Delta State, who doubles as the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the NDDC.
He gave kudos to the NDDC for providing critical infrastructure. He said: “As the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the NDDC, I am impressed with the efforts of the new board and management. I assure them of the continued support of the governors of the nine Niger Delta states.”
Mindful of the contributions of youths to the transformation agenda of Mr. President, the NDDC initiated different programmes to build their capacity to be gainfully employed. The positive fall-out of this strategy is now evident as statistics made available by the commission indicate that a total of 5,765 youths across the Niger Delta region have so far benefited from its youth empowerment programmes.
Again, the NDDC is making substantial contributions to the transition from subsistence farming to modern agricultural practices. Currently, the commission has distributed over 100 tractors to ministries of agriculture in the nine Niger Delta states to boost food production. It also donated 27 tractors to the Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS) group, for delivery to farmer cooperatives in their respective host communities.
Of all the development projects which the NDDC has undertaken in the Niger Delta, the one that brings tremendous relief and makes immediate impact on the lives of the rural people is the free Health Care Programme from which over 5,000 patients have benefited since the coming of the new board. The free Health Care Missions have been taken to virtually all corners of the Niger Delta to heal many suffering from the effects of oil exploration and exploitation in their communities. The commission is also rehabilitating hospitals and health centres, as well as building new ones, including two specialist hospitals in Rivers and Cross River States in partnership with the private sector. The huge investment in physical infrastructure is understandable since it represents what many consider to be tangible development. Often, people want to see the roads, bridges, water schemes, electricity among others. In this wise, the current board of the NDDC has not disappointed the people. Records from the commission’s project monitoring directorate shows that the interventionist agency constructed about 550 kilometres of roads; completed over 50 water schemes, in addition to providing electricity to about 70 communities. Agbu wrote from Port Harcourt