Can Semenitari Clean the NDDC Augean Stable?
It is a brand new year that is as usual, replete with resolutions, expectations and prayers for a successful outing. But if there’s anybody in the Niger Delta who truly deserves our collective prayers, encouragement and support this New Year, it is certainly the newly appointed Acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mrs. Ibim Semenitari. As her job description demands, she’s expected to revive and revamp a comatose system, long plagued by administrative inefficiency, gross financial mismanagement and massive corruption-quite a herculean task to achieve, even for the bravest of hearts of minds in our society today.
The story of the NDDC has remained a travesty of social justice since it was established by an act of parliament under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. One of the several pacifist initiatives of the Federal Government to address poverty and douse tension in Nigeria’s oil-rich region, the establishment of the commission came with high expectations and hopes that were dashed over the years. Members of its board and management, hand-picked from the political class, suddenly found themselves sitting atop the people’s common wealth that was meant to bridge the gap of infrastructure and human under-development across the nine states of the Niger Delta. Driven by an unbridled quest for self-enrichment at the expense of the poverty-stricken and ecologically devastated communities, the fat-cats in the system threw caution to the wind in their stealing acts. On several occasions, their unrestrained scramble for ill-gotten wealth had culminated in chaos and infighting which probably climaxed when a one-time board chairman, Ambassador Sam Edem, reportedly hired a witch-doctor to carry out a sacrifice involving the burning of raw cash amounting to hundreds of millions of naira at a Port Harcourt cemetery.
It was such a lurid account of conspiracy, blackmail and utter betrayal of public trust that prompted the intervention of the immediate past administration to set it up years ago. And when the Chief Isaac Jemide-led presidential monitoring committee submitted its report to former President Goodluck Jonathan in march 2013, it was revealed that the NDDC had, in addition to many other atrocities committed, abandoned many projects whilst engaging incompetent contractors without recourse to due process. Lest I forget, the report also accused the NDDC helmsmen of engaging in “astronomical variation of contract sums”.
It is an endless account of abuse of office by bulls in the China shop of the NDDC, but what has been chronicled so far should probably serve to remind the acting chief executive that effecting real change in a rotten system is no piece of cake. To explain further, it should be noted that the ouster of criminals in their natural habitat does not amount to the obliteration of their foot prints and influence therein. Therefore, one of her first assignments should necessarily include an attempt to understand how the devil’s theory thrives at NDDC, with a view to unmasking its promoters as well as making conscious efforts to drastically reduce the incentives for corruption at the Harold Dappa-Biriye House.
More to the point: can Mrs. Semenitari, the first woman to be so appointed, make the difference? My answer is in the affirmative; and I take this position fully aware that someday history will hold me accountable for it.
In 2011 when Hon. Ogbonna Nwuke, my senior colleague and friend, vacated office as commissioner for information to represent the Etche/Omuma Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Journalists in Rivers State felt an initial vacuum in that office. But that vacuum was effectively filled the moment Mrs. Semenitari came in as his successor. She immediately set out her goals that anchored on the core values of professionalism, productivity and profitability and hit the ground running. It must have been a very good choice for former Governor Rotimi Amaechi who could go to sleep in a very politically volatile period, knowing that he had a strong voice to effectively interpret the philosophy of his government as well as his actions and inactions. But the highest beneficiaries were the ordinary people who were given a sense of direction in those days of political turmoil in Rivers State.
Mrs. Semenitari [Nee Tobby] is an ideal wife, mother, sister and colleague, who inspite of her sheltered background worked tirelessly to carve a niche for herself. A devout Christian of the Anglican tradition, she derives enormous strength from her Christian faith to excel in the journalism profession, in entrepreneurship and leadership.
From this sketchy description of her person, which I intend to stretch further in due course, it is obvious that the daughter of Chief Gabriel Tobby [a seasoned administrator and one-time Deputy Governor of Rivers State] and wife of a bank chief executive has got a hard-earned reputation to protect. Let us not fail, however, to remember her in our prayers as she steps into a rather difficult terrain where others have failed.