FEATURE ARTICLE

Chigachi EkeThursday, November 3, 2016
[email protected]
Port Harcourt, Nigeria

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NDDC, SEMENITARI AND RIVERS APC

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n Wednesday 26th October Ibim Semenitari, Acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO, of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was summoned by the Senator Andy Ubah Senate Committee on Public Accounts. Charges proffered against her commission were: One, awarding 1,691 contracts between 2014 and 2016 without documented evidence. Committee gave her seven days to provide details of her commission's finance and contracts. Two, operating twenty-two bank accounts contrary to the four permitted by law. And three, owing the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS, some N28.7 bn as unpaid tax.

Clearly, Public Accounts Committee has a crucial role to play in the anti-corruption campaign of the President Muhammadu Buhari renaissance government. Nigerians welcome any measure aimed at restoring confidence in government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs. But laid down procedures must be followed not to create three problems solving one. We fault Semenitari's appearance before Public Accounts Committee on the following grounds:

One, fiscal indiscipline and award of contracts in breach of due process were reasons why President Buhari sent her to sanitise the commission. She has already domiciled transparency in NDDC long before her 26th October invitation, unless the logic in inviting her was to reverse progress.

Two, Public Accounts Committee has no business summoning Semenitari as it has no supervisory function over NDDC. That is a job for the Senator Peter Nwaoboshi Senate Committee on Niger Delta. The action of Public Accounts Committee is ultra vires and can only promote illegalities.

Three, if the contracts in question must be revisited then her immediate predecessor Barrister Bassey Dan-Abia who awarded them should be summoned to account for his stewardship.

Four, same fact applies to the huge tax owed FIRS. Semenitari cannot be held liable for the inactions of her predecessors who served under a different party manifesto.

And five, Semenitari has maintained the Treasury Single Account, TSA, since assuming office December 2015. NDDC could have operated 22 separate bank accounts but certainly not under her watch as records are there for the Senate Committee on Ethics, privileges and Public Petitions to verify.

What happened in the hallowed senate last week could have been written off as an oversight but for the very fact that Semenitari is also under attack from Babachir David Lawal, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF. Lawal prohibited Semenitari from signing contracts thereby effectively stopping her from implementing President Buhari's vision for the region. We wonder how Semenitari can develop the region without her executive powers; just as we refuse to believe that President Buhari could be negotiating for peace in the region with one hand while stoking the flames of discontent by paralysing NDDC with the other.

We are not unmindful that Semenitari's travails are linked to the activities of petition writers from the region. From her own Ijaw ethnic group have emerged implacable enemies who will stop at nothing to pull her down from her lofty position. In this respect we thank other regional minorities like Ogonis, Ikwerres, Itsekiris, etc, for their solidarity. Secondly, we take cognisance of the fact that Ijaws trying to unseat her are all members of her own All Progressives Party, APC, Rivers State Chapter. In this respect we again thank Ijaws in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Rivers State Chapter, for their maturity.

But this is the time to speak out. We thank President Buhari for keeping faith with the ethnic minorities of the Niger Delta. We believe his sincerity in developing the region. However, we must make haste to also declare that the clog in the wheel of progress can no longer be blamed on majority Igbos, Yorubas and Hausas/Fulanis. The problem of Niger Delta appears to be Niger Delta minorities themselves.

It is with full sense of responsibility, therefore, that we beg President Buhari to allow the faithful Semenitari go; having fulfilled her mandate of repositioning the commission for further and better service delivery. The petitions against her are false and can never stand impartial scrutiny. Something has to give in since the enemies are within Rivers APC itself. President Buhari must let her go so that the party can survive just as she would wish, no doubt. She can always serve the region in some other capacity.

In the same vein we advice the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Eastern Zone, under Chairman Iyerifama Godswill Jaja, to also let her go. We duly acknowledge the milestones recorded by Semenitari at NDDC and the present hues and cries within Rivers APC have nothing to do with her tenure as acting MD. The last thing we desire right now is tension in Rivers and threats against Semenitari are better brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities.

Jaja must deescalate the tension in his own Rivers as no true leader leads his people into war when he has the option of peace. Open confrontation must be ruled out. Caution, consultation and critical thinking are the way forward. The opportunity cost of paying too much attention to unhappy petition writers is paying inadequate attention to the proposed dialogue between President Buhari and the region.

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