PORT HARCOURT/Nigeria: Recent consistent attacks on the works and management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by the Rivers state governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, have been described as part of the governor’s plans to hide the fact that he has been sloppy and inefficient.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the South-South, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, who disclosed this in a statement issued and circulated in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, also took a swipe at the governor for attempting to distract the NDDC from succeeding in the critical areas where he has failed as governor, saying the governor has been uncharitable and his actions located as a campaign of calumny and most unfortunate.
Eze, who was spokesman of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP), recalled that Governor Wike, in his recent meeting with the management of the NDDC, led by its Acting Managing Director, Professor Nelson Brambaifa, had played a negative host as he reportedly launched verbal attacks on the commission’s leadership, even as he tried to berate the works and essence of the establishment.
Quoting the governor, referring to his comments during the commission’s leadership’s visit to the Government House in Port Harcourt recently, Eze recalled the governor saying “they have refused to constitute the Governors Board since 2015 because majority of the South-South States are controlled by the PDP. Nineteen years after establishment, the NDDC is still constructing its headquarters. All the participating states have no mega projects. The NDDC was designed to help the Niger Delta grow, but that is not the situation on ground. Can we justify the funds that have passed through the NDDC?”
He, however, advised the governor not to play politics with everything that comes his way, asking him to rather give credit and encourage the Brambaifa-led management for the great works it is doing, at least to make the people of Rivers State and other states within the region to feel the presence of the federal government within their areas.
He noted, rather with sadness, that Governor Wike, not minding the hundreds of billions that have accrued to the Rivers State Government’s coffers, has not been able to add any positive or landmark piece to the architecture of the state: no tangible or mega project has been executed by his administration, except for motor parks, an amusement park and markets that are under the purview of local government councils in the state.
To buttress his points, Eze highlighted a few of the mega projects so far initiated by the NDDC, and dared Wike to name one single mega project he had executed since he assumed office in 2015 as the Executive Governor of Rivers State.
According to him, the NDDC leadership, Few days ago, Prof. Nelson Brambaifa led members of his Executive Management Team and the Rivers State Rep of the Commission, Hon Tekena Flag Amachree, and others in the state office to Commission the Emergency Repairs of Failed and Unmotorable Sections of Reclamation Road in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
“The NDDC team also took an on the spot assessment tour of the failed sections of East/West Road by Nkpolu/Rumuigbo, Port Harcourt where he was kept abreast of the situation of the heavily flooded section of the East/West Road which has greatly affected residents of the area and motorist plying the road negatively and seeing the deplorable situation promised to commence work and see to the repair of road in two (2) months.”
“Construction of Niger Delta Regional Specialist Hospital (Cardiovascular Hospital), Port Harcourt, among others.”
