Dr Samuel Ogbuku, Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has said that contrary to opinions, the commission made lots of successes but failed to tell its story.
Ogbuku stated this in his remarks on Monday at the opening ceremony of the Two-Day Technical Committee Meeting of the 6th National Council on Niger Delta (NCND) holding in Asaba.
The meeting has the theme, “Stimulating Strategies for Economic Growth and Development in the Niger Delta Region”.
He noted that because NDDC had failed to tell its story, people started saying what was not correct about the commission.
He said that the commission also failed to generate data of its projects and programmes to prove what it has done over the years.
However, he assured that that era of nit having data evidence of projects and programmes were gone, adding that the current administration has adopted needed strategies to showcase its activities transparently.
“This is the seventh Governing Board of the NDDC, but it had had many Managing Directors more than the number of governing boards,”
“In spite of its challenges, the commission has made a lot of successes.
“In some places they say NDDC has not done anything, I had similar impression too not until I became the MD/CEO of the NDDC.
” And from available records, the commission failed to tell its own story. “So people started telling the story of NDDC that was not correct,” he said.
He said that in Edo, that the management recently discovered that NDDC had completed a power project for many years that has not been inaugurated.
He, however, lauded the community for not allowing the project to be vandalised even when the credit has not been given to the NDDC for many years that the project has been without being inaugurated.
Ogbuku said that the commission from available records has executed about 5,141km across the nine states in the region.
He said that the commission when constitute had taken care of the needs of the people in the region based on their need assessment then.
“This is because crude oil exploration eroded the economic lifestyle of the people, their agitations then were just the basics; community roads, schools, jetties, water projects which were the need assessment when NDDC was constituted.
” Then NDDC met the people according to their needs. However, the commission has graduated above that today.
” I can assure you that most of our communities today are sufficiently okay with some of the projects the commission has done.
“What we are doing now is to connect most of the communities to the cities.
“The commission today is intervening in everything about the lifestyle of the people of the region. We spent billion of naira on medical support,” he said.
He added, “NDDC also carries out free medical healthcare and for four years now, before the current intervention, it has attended to no fewer than 573, 258 patients from different communities in the region.
” On foreign scholarship, we have done 2,323 students in the region and we have just published the resumption for 2024/2025 scholarship for post graduate programme.”
The managing director disclosed that the commission has adopted what he called a triple “T”; Transiting, Transaction to Transformation to ensure accurate data keeping and transparency.
He said that the commission has adopted Project Hope Programme which has ensured that a database was built for the youth of the Niger Delta.
“Currently, we have about 471,000 youths that have registered. Yet we are pushing for more to be registered.
According to him, the database for the youth will enable the commission intervene on any training programmes that may necessary to equip the youths in specific training areas.
He disclosed that the commission has come up with Niger Delta Chambers of Commerce to strengthen entrepreneurship in the region.
He said that the commission would soon be inaugurating an electricity power project in Ondo State to light up about five local government areas in the state.
He said that the commission alone could not do all the projects in the region but called for partnership with the state government and other corporate local and international to further development in the region.
Earlier, the Secretary to Delta State Government, Dr Kingsley Emu, while presenting a paper on the theme of the event, said the committee should explore the economic opportunities and challenges as well as potentials abounding in the region.
According to him the region has potentials in tourism, agriculture, crude oil deposits, gas reserves, ICT.
“And other physical infrastructure developments like the coastal super-highways that is expected to begin in Lagos through the coastal states of the Niger Delta to terminate at Calabar.
On his part, the Director, Public Private Partnership Research Development, Dr. Johnson Oseodion, said to bridge the infrastructural investment gap in Nigeria requires three trillion dollars ($3 trillion) over the next 30 years to build and maintain infrastructure.
” This will require the adoption of the Public Private Partnership, (PPP) model in energy, transport, agriculture, ICT , water and mining amongst others,” he said.
