Act for Positive Transformation Initiative (APTI) in Nigeria has requested President Muhammadu Buhari to freeze the account of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Development Diaries learnt that the civil society organisation (CSO) also asked the Nigerian leader to suspend all further spending in the commission.

APTI’s Head, Directorate of Research, Strategy and Programme, Johnson Kolawale, made the request at a news conference in Abuja,

Nigeria’s national assembly had launched a probe into alleged mismanagement of N40 billion by the Kemebradikumo Pondei-led management committee of the NDDC.

The NDDC has a responsibility to train and educate the youth of the oil-rich region to curb hostilities and militancy while developing key infrastructure to promote diversification and productivity.

President Muhammadu Buhari had described the allegations of corruption against officials of the commission as an abuse of trust.

‘We call on President Muhammadu Buhari, the national assembly and genuine security and anti-corruption agencies to immediately freeze the accounts of the commission and apprehend everyone involved in the continuous scandalous pillaging of the agency’s treasury’, Kolawale said.

He alleged that plans were ongoing to make fraudulent expenditures by top officials in the commission, stating that the NDDC had continued to spend funds against due process and against the directive of the president.

‘It gladdens the heart to note that some of the commission’s officials are already refunding part of their loot to the government’s recovery coffers.

‘The presidency also pre-emptively disowned the commission’s management over the latter’s impunity in extra budgetary spending yet ongoing.

‘However, decisive steps must be taken urgently to end the audacious and unprecedented looting under a government that professes to be fighting corruption.

‘After all, we all bear the consequences of the despicable actions of officials in government’.

Kolawale said that in addition to the N1.5 billion already spent on members of staff of the commission as palliatives for Covid-19, another N340 million had been spent for the same reason.

According to him, the management recently employed at least 50 contract staff without following civil service rules and guidelines.

He said that some of the new intakes were alleged to be without required skills or experience and were placed on assistant director cadre without competence tests or needs assessment.

But the spokesman for the NDDC, Charles Odili, has denied the allegations.

‘The discerning public is already fatigued with this pattern of unending lies against the commission’, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted Odili as saying.

‘The NDDC is not recruiting, we are not in the position to do that because the 2020 budget for the commission has not been approved’.

Source: NAN