Leaders of the Niger Delta Youth Council (NDYC) Worldwide have rejected calls by the Coalition of Niger Delta Civil Society Organisations in conjunction with the Ex-militant Forum for a protest against the leadership of Dr Samuel Ubuku and Mr Chiedu Ebie, managing director and board chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) respectively.
In a letter addressed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the coalition accused the managing director of mismanagement and lopsided projects and contract awards and called for the sack of the chairman of the board, whose appointment they claimed contravened the NDDC Act.
But in a swift reaction, NDYC, in a rebuttal through the trio of Engr.Jator Abido, Comrade Collins Achakpekri, and Engr. Beke Apere, the national coordinator, director of international relations, and chairman of the Board of Trustees, respectively, said the allegations against the NDDC management were untrue.
They accused the coalition of wanting to slow the wheels of progress under the current NDDC leadership.
NYDC said it was a callous and blatant falsehood designed to cast the administration of Ubuku and Ebie in bad light because the actors’ selfish and parochial interests were not accommodated in the affairs at the commission.
Apere said those parading themselves as members of civil society organisations in the region and ex-agitators were ignorant of the challenges of the Niger Delta and did not represent the true spirit of the area.
According to him, the coalition was out to profit from the region’s resources without a genuine concern for its people.
He said, “As true representatives of our people, we boldly say that Dr Samuel Ubuku remains the best NDDC managing director to have emerged since the creation of the commission. He has carried everybody along in appointments and the distribution of projects. Anybody who feels otherwise is a saboteur and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“It is also laughable that someone in their correct thinking will question the appointment of a bona fide Niger Delta into a commission set up for the development of the region simply because the appointee does not come from a community that produces crude oil.
“This warped thinking doesn’t belong to the human species and should be disregarded. Those who only seek to divide using parochial yardsticks and sentiments should not be dignified with a response. We, therefore, distance ourselves from such persons and want Nigerians to pay deaf ears to their agitations,” Apere stated.
The youth group finally vowed to resist the attempt by sponsored goons to throw the region into needless crisis and pledged to mobilise its members across all the states that make up the region to stage a solidarity match for the NDDC management on the same day that those opposed to the development of the area are planning their protest.
“As patriots and law-abiding citizens who are desirous to see mass development in the Niger Delta region, we cannot fold our arms and watch a faceless few throw our region into crisis. We shall, therefore, mobilise en masse to stage a solidarity match on the 27th of February to counter our enemies and tell the world the truth about our region”, he concluded in the response.