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NDDC restates mission
CHARLES ABAH
MANAGEMENT of
the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has restated its mission to
tansform the oil-rich region into a land flowing with milk and honey.
The envisaged transformation which would
be anchored on education, infrastructure development, skills acquisition, roads,
tourism, among others, the NDDC said, would be fully accomplished in 15 years.
Chairman of NDDC, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu
stated these in an interview with Daily Champion while appraising the
commission’s developmental role in the region.
The networking, he said, has been
completed and would be achieved piecemeal every five years.
"The master plan that we have worked has a
15-year vision. I am saying that in 15 years, the Niger Delta will be the most
pleasant, the most prosperous. The 15 years will be reached in three segments,
the first five years, another five, and another five," he declared.
Listing some of the commission’s
development efforts so far, Chief Ugochukwu said the NDDC has built several
schools, roads, provided water and infrastructure with the overall objective of
impacting positively on the people’s livelihood and well-being.
"If we didn’t build this physical
infrastructure, people will never agree that we did anything. For me, on
reflection, it is part of the process of increasing the capacity of the people
to improve their livelihood," the NDDC helsman explained.
The commission’s investment specifically
in roads and electricity he said, would further empower the people on capacity
building as well as boost tourism in the region.
On funding for the NDDC; Chief Ugochukwu
said going by the law "all we get is about N30 billion average; last year we got
N27 billion."
Ugochukwu remarked that if the bill
submitted by President Olusegun Obasanjo to the National Assembly, which
provided for 50 per cent of derivation money, "do you know how much we will be
talking about annually? That will be about N150 billion."
According to him, the N150 billion does
not include contributions from oil firms, adding that "what we would have been
getting from derivation alone, the way the President submitted it, this year it
would have been between N150 billion and N200 billion."
Nonetheless, Chief Ugochukwu said
assessment of whether the NDDC used funds made available to it should be left to
the people of the Niger Delta.
Chief Ugochukwu reacted to some questions:
What was the primary challenge of the NDDC
in carrying out this assignment from the Presidency?
When we got here, President Olusegun
Obasanjo also helped us by giving us his own ideas of what he considered to be
the mandate. The problem in the Niger Delta in 1999 - 2000 was restiveness,
violence among groups. We found out that this arose principally from the high
level of poverty in the region. It may surprise you to know that in the index of
poverty measurement, the Niger Delta is below the national average. In
everywhere, the place was neglected so badly. The challenge was to try and
improve things first, secondly to try and rebuild trust in government. At a
point, this place was a war zone. They did not even trust us. We were fighting
battles in our office everyday not just between our own security people and the
invaders, the invaders also want to exclude other invaders. We needed to rebuild
that trust, to pacify the place, to have peace. That was the primary challenge.
We moved to calm frayed nerves and the best way to do this was to begin to
create opportunities. To get the people engage in believing that they can have a
gainful livelihood without having to kidnap oil workers.
Can we know the major projects the NDDC is
known for?
There is a point people miss. I just said
that the main problem was to improve the livelihood, if we were to change the
livelihood of the people of the Niger Delta nobody will note it that anything
changed. In Nigeria if we do not prepare structures, people will not agree, that
some thing has changed. And yet the structures are only part of improving the
livelihood. I think with three and a half years in this job, I am beginning to
understand it. I didn’t even understand it at the beginning. It is one thing to
build structures; roads, water but the critical problem in the Niger Delta is to
improve livelihoods. All these structures are part of it. I can go out there and
make everybody have a new livelihood but you should remember that when they
start getting hungry, they will forget they were ever hungry, it is the roads
that they remember, I was not thinking of politics when we built the roads. Like
I said, they were part of improving the livelihood. But after three and a half
years have gone, I am beginning to see the differences. So we’ve been providing
water, schools, when we started building schools, some governors said what is
NDDC doing with schools. We have pictures in major state capitals where children
were sitting on the floor, where there were no chairs and benches.
If we didn’t build this physical
infrastructures, people will never agree that we did anything. For me, on
reflection, it was part of the process of increasing the capacity of the people
to improve their livelihood. Education, skill acquisition, when you have a road,
it will boost tourism, when you have electricity its not only for iced water, a
woman who was using sewing machine with leg can now use one with electricity.
For so long this part of the country had
been literarily forgotten and abandoned until the president came up with the
NDDC, looking back as an adult Nigerian what does this picture tell you about
the future of development in Nigeria?
I will like to look at it in three phases.
As far back as 1957, the British government recognised the peculiar problem in
the Niger Delta, that was why they set up the Winis Commission. It produced the
report which government tried to implement from 1962, they set up the Niger
Delta development Board. Unfortunately it was not funded. Then the war came,
then we came out of the war. Along the way there was the River Basins which
tried to equate the problems of the Niger Delta with the problems of other areas
where the water dried up. The problem wasn’t that the water dried up. Then there
was the 1.75% fund and later OMPADEC. None of these was funded adequately. That
was a problem. Everybody has acknowledged that there was a peculiar problem in
these areas. It was never funded honestly.
Obasanjo volunteered, nobody forced him
which is why he has been so committed to the notion of the NDDC. At the time he
came to power, this whole area was a war zone. Ken Saro Wiwa and his group had
been hanged, then the Ijaw Youths had done the Kaima Declaration. In Warri in
1997, there was a war between Ijaw and Itsekiri. It wasn’t the normal war. The
war used to be between Urhobo and Itsekiri and it was never violent. They came
and made noise in the day, in the night they made love. It wasn’t violent but by
1997 we had a different scenario. This was a crisis zone. The problem NDDC has
had to deal with is a post crisis syndrome in this area. There had been war,
there had been crises. This is a post-crisis reconstruction.
During our visit to Okoroutip, we saw
poverty, so what is the target of NDDC?
Let me say this. In the last two weeks
we’ve been watching the report of the Niger Delta done by Jeff Konagbe of the
CNN. Its so horrible, he comes from Kenya. If I take a camera to Nairobi, I
don’t even need to leave Nairobi to produce more horrific pictures and if you
take it to any city including London, New York, you will produce the same thing,
but it is not in Niger Delta. It is not. Nobody says that by a miracle we are
going to change 40 years of neglect. I am hoping that people can see that there
is incremental improvements.
The road Okoroutip is incremental. The
master plan that we have worked has a 15-year vision. I am saying that in 15
years, the Niger Delta will be the most pleasant, the most prosperous. The 15
years will be reached in three segments, the first five years, another five,
another five. Incremental improvement like that road. You may not know why it is
important to the people, they have never had roads. To go home, they have to
meander through creeks. It used to take them several hours. Have you considered
the situation of the man in Ibeno, his son who goes to the same university as
you and I becomes an engineer, a journalist, he buys a car, he can’t take it
home to show his own mother. This is what we are changing and that’s why those
roads are important.
How soon do you see some of these projects
completed before the end of this administration?
I appreciate their fear but let me tell
you something. I don’t know whether you use it or not. In 1997, ‘98, Mobil which
is the main oil company in that area gave a donation of N350 million to the
Ibeno people, N300m for the communities and N50 million for the traditional
rulers. The youths forced the traditional rulers to surrender their own and they
added it to the main purse and they shared it. The highest amount everybody got
was N10,000. When we started this road, it was Ibeno people who came to me and
said, this is what happened, we wish we did not share this money. When this road
started Ibeno people told me the story. That is one aspect of it. The other
aspect, I told you that I shared their concern. The country is full of projects
abounded and people treat it as good politics. If you have ten naira you can’t
start 10 projects which you know will cost you N100. You go and do foundation of
10 projects meanwhile you know you don’t have N100 then you know you are not
going to complete them. When I came here, some governors advised me to do 100
days project. I said no I’m not here for 100 days. I’m here for four years. And
whoever succeeds me, I hope would see it that way. The difference we made in
NDDC is that we looked at why were projects abandoned. Usually there was no
money to carry on. So they abandoned and 10 years later we will tell the
contractors to grant us discount. So contractors began to load their prices.
But we also put the money aside. If you
reach the milestone, we pay. We have done 812 projects, 538 have been completed.
Our emphasis has been on completion.
You have about nine states in the Niger
Delta, how do you share money and projects among them?
Basically, we use the share of production.
NDDC is also a regional development commission. We agonised over it at the
beginning and we came out with a formula.
We discussed again with our stakeholders,
some governors and I want to mention specifically, Governor Attah of Akwa Ibom.
He grabbed it right at the beginning and supported it. We will respect oil
production percentage. So much for oil production so much for regional projects,
so much for equality. The equality of states is an important fact because every
local government in the Niger Delta is entitled to something. In reality, the
formula worked out in states where you have one local government. Ukwa is so
well developed than local governments in Delta or Rivers that produce more oil
because in Rivers every local government is oil producing. The oil producing
local governments have become so developed that they have beaten the people who
produce more oil than they did. But we try to do these balances. Yes we respect
the language of the law, we are a regional development commission therefore we
have to reach everybody. The sharing formula is 60 per cent oil production, 20
per cent equality of states, 10 per cent cap oil and 10 per cent for pipeline
crossing.
What are the regional projects that you
have embarked on?
We have embarked on many. They are many.
May be you should have asked me the definition of a regional project. This is
one that involved two states. If I’m building a bridge across the boundary of
two states, that is a regional project. Anything that involves two states or
more is a regional project. That is the way we defined it. There are projects
that touch the people, then things like capacity building, human capacity
building; skill acquisition, entrepreneurship, putting the buses on the road;
they are capacity building and are regional projects. They build up the capacity
of the whole region. If you have a bridge linking two states, that is regional.
I have had governors write me letters saying that bridges between local
governments in my state and the other state should be a regional project, and I
will say no. That is not regional, it must involve at least two of the member
states before we can look at it. But in human capacity programme we treat it as
regional and again we pay attention to production capacity but we do not follow
the strict formula of how much you produce. We are looking at the human beings,
the mood within the area. So we don’t follow a specific formula in capacity
building.
Some militant groups within the Niger
Delta have been threatening oil companies to leave and we know that these oil
firms contribute to the NDDC. Is this threat a show of lack of appreciation of
the work of NDDC or the fund made available to the commission not sufficient to
handle the problems in the areas?
When we came here, it was violence. People
were fighting in our offices. Three years ago, I would not have agreed to move
to Aba road. We moved there and we have not been invaded. The only attempt was
from a group of students, not the traditional invaders, the students who came
from the university who said we have not reached them and they were persuaded.
Two years ago I would not have entered that place.
The problems we still have in the Niger
Delta are no longer about NDDC inadequacies, no longer about government not
reaching them, the problems in Warri had their roots in politics of local
government creation, the problems in Rivers had their roots in politics. None of
them has said NDDC. The commission is a major player in this rapprochement
because the people trust us, that is the truth.
Would you say the NDDC has been well
funded?
I have always said that the problem wasn’t
how much money but what you do with the money, how well did you use the money.
The Bill the President submitted to the National Assembly had wanted 50 per cent
of derivation money. National Assembly didn’t pass it, the President didn’t sign
it. If NDDC had got 50 per cent of derivation money, do you know how much we
will be talking about annually? That will be about N150 billion. By the way the
N150 billion does not include contributions from oil firms. What we would have
been getting from derivation alone, the way the President submitted it. This
year, it would have been between N150 and N200 billion.
The way the law is, all we get is about
N30 billion average. Last year we got N27 billion. Is it well funded or not? It
is the people of the Niger Delta who will determine whether NDDC used the money
well. I will like to think we did. We have tried to set standard. If you have
N10, don’t start 10 N20 projects, start 10 N1 projects and make sure you
complete them. We have tried to set this standard in the hope that we don’t
waste money by creating more abandoned projects. That question was also
difficult, is the money being put in this area, enough to solve the problem? My
answer is no, we need a lot of money to come in but we also need to account for
the money that is available. How well have we used it, strengthens us to ask for
more.
Most Nigerians know you as a journalist,
prior to your appointment as a senior special assistant to the President on
national orientation and public affairs, you weren’t known to have been in
governmental administration, but it is quite curious how you have been
integrated into these very massive structures against the background of the
achievement of the NDDC, to what will you attribute these achievements. What
kind of team do you have.
First, the quality of the board that the
President gave us. That board is full of solid, experienced people. I don’t know
how it happened but these are solid people. Secondly, I think the journalist is
probably the best human being in any society. The man who eats launch with the
king in the afternoon, he dines with some people at one buka in the night
and then he retains his sanity. He is probably the best friend anybody can have
in life. He goes up, goes down within one day, nothing can never shock him. I’m
also an economist but I’m known as a journalist. He is probably the best friend
anybody can have. I’m not using myself as an example because I ‘m very rigid,
but I’m imagining some of the people I know in the journalism profession, I’m
not the best example because I’m rigid. Journalism trains people, ensuring you
actually go through the mills. These days some of the people start at the top
and they never find the bottom unfortunately. They are writing about all the
parties thrown in Ikoyi and they never knew the parties thrown in Alagbado. So
you understand.
In some organisations, you have
intra-management fighting, how was it in your own case?
When you bring a group of people together,
you will go through a period of storming. You don’t know each other, you come
from different backgrounds, these are battles. The tragedy of organisations like
NDDC is that we started living like gold fish from the beginning. If I didn’t
say good morning to the MD, it was news because everybody is watching. But in
every organisation you bring people together, there is a storming period. We
didn’t have the privilege of doing our storming in private but people need to
get used to one another before you can understand. If you want to hear my
experience, I came here believing in the goodness of human beings. A lot of
people came here looking for different things. Along the way these things
couldn’t work. We had our period of troubles, casualties all sorts but I will
call that period, the period of storming. There were casualties but fortunately
we eventually lost one member of the board. But after the storming in the board.
Storms in creating the management. The board ran the place before we actually
got a management but that is a different story. So integrating the management
and the board created a new storm. We have managed to get through it. But at
least I have opened my heart. We have to go through storming in the board, we
had board meetings that went till 3 a.m. It was that bad. Storming at the board,
NDDC had done it twice in its less than four years existence.
Did you have the privilege of comparing
notes with similar organisations in other parts of the world.
Yes, we do. Many organisations got excited
about it. The irony of Nigeria is that we condemn ourselves. We do so through
our newspapers. I am talking as an insider. Before I got to this point I had
taken up some foreigners about their opinion of Nigeria and I spoke very
eloquently. And they said everything they are saying is in your own newspapers.
People condemn us on the basis of what we say about ourselves in our newspapers.
The World bank was interested in what we are doing. They organised a Niger
Mississippi conference in Lousiana. We attended. The World Bank man here then
was Mark. We were then to go on to Vietnam, the Com valley, River Development,
long the way, the World Bank backed out. Everyday in the newspapers, the people
were accusing NDDC of corruption. NDDC has been reported to ICPC more than 10
times. They have gone through our books, EFCC, SSS. When people make these
charges, they don’t have evidence and they don’t realise the consequence of what
they are selling to others. The world bank backed out. When the former MD left,
the World Bank said that they can re-start it. So I restarted the process.
Not just the world, the UNDP, USA, the
European Union, I had meeting with them. They wanted to come in but they read
the papers, they read the accusations about how we are all spinning the money,
they pulled back. What we write about ourselves, damage us and NDDC had been a
victim.
Must the NDDC be a permanent government
agency for development?
It should be. I just mentioned that the
World Bank organised Niger Mississippi. In the US, there is a Mississippi
Development Authority set up in the 1930s. The US corps of Army Engineers run it
mostly. Since the 1930s, the Mississippi looks like our Niger Delta. The
problems are not totally solved but they are far ahead of us but the body is
still there. We need for NDDC to stay and will help to harmonise all the
activities geared towards development of the Niger Delta. There must be a
central area because the river flows through many states, creeks and spreads. If
there is nobody pursuing the peculiar problems of this place like this, then
forget it. Let me just say something. The problems of Rivers and Delta are
different from the problems of Bayelsa In Rivers you have rivers that flow into
the Atlantic ocean. In Delta you have rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean;
Escravos, Forcados, Benin river. They drain the land. The measurement of whether
NDDC made a difference or not is whether we made a difference in Bayelsa or not
than any other place. Just before Trofani, the River Niger divides into two
rivers, the Nun and the Niger none of which reaches the Atlantic on its own.
They divided again which means that all the water that comes down is sustained
on land, they will not flow. The Niger brings a lot of filth which keep blocking
water doesn’t end up in the Atlantic. There are no ports, no port potential in
Bayelsa. That is why we have flooding. There is a peculiar problem out there.
It is quite evident that you have passion
for this job? (cuts in)
There is no doubt that I have a passion
for the Niger Delta, my wife is from Warri but my people, I’m from Umuahia, a
whole lot of Rivers people, their mothers and grand mothers come from our area,
Umuahia and Mbano. There has been a link for more than 500 years. I married an
Itsekiri woman and I love her.
What would you love to be remembered for
after your tenure in NDDC?
I had a very difficult child birth, my confirmation lasted
three months. At some point I had to address the South East caucus in the
National Assembly and I said to them. Our neighbours who were with us in the
Eastern Nigeria don’t trust us but I’m going out there to build a bridge. I hope
I will succeed. I think I will be remembered for building the bridge, may be the
pillars, not a complete bridge. I’ve built some trust. That is my major
achievement. At least, they will look at me and say that one Igbo man.
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