The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has said that despite regardless of the poor perceptions about the commission it has many disclosed achievements.
Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, the Managing Director of the NDDC, made these remarks on Monday at the opening session of a two-day technical committee meeting of the 6th National Council on Niger Delta in Asaba, Delta State.
The theme of the meeting is “Stimulating strategies for economic growth and development in the Niger Delta region.”
Mr Ogbuku acknowledged that the lack of storytelling by the commission had led to misconceptions among the public.
He admitted that the commission had struggled to document its projects and programs to substantiate its efforts over the years.
Nonetheless, he affirmed that the days of insufficient data and evidence were over, stating that the current administration had implemented measures to transparently showcase its activities.
“This is the seventh governing board of the NDDC, but it has had many managing directors more than the number of governing boards. Despite its challenges, the commission has made a lot of successes. In some places, they say NDDC has not done anything; I had a 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, the people started telling the story of NDDC that was not correct,” he said.
He said the management recently discovered that NDDC had completed a power project in Edo State many years back still to be inaugurated.
Mr Ogbuku, however, lauded the community for not allowing the project to be vandalised even when the credit had not been given to NDDC for the many years it had been without inauguration.
He said the commission, from available records, executed about 5,141km of roads across the nine states in the region.
He added that the commission had also taken care of the needs of the people in the region based on their needs assessment.
“This is because crude oil exploration eroded the economic lifestyle of the people; their agitations then were just the basics – community roads, schools, jetties, and water projects, which were the needs assessment when NDDC was constituted.
“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 billions of naira on medical support,” he said.
