Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
Niger Delta Development Commission has denied a trending photograph of a wooden bridge at Elebele in Ogbia, Bayelsa State, suggesting that the commission constructed it with N2.3bilion.
The commission in a statement signed by its Corporate Affairs Director, Charles Odili, described the picture and its accompanying write-up as fake news.
Odili said the NDDC had no such project at Elebele, insisting that the commission’s records in the past 18 years contained no contract offer for the construction of a bridge in the community.
He, however, said, “The Elebele community in 2018 sought the assistance of the commission to rebuild the bridge which had collapsed. The proposal is still going through our system and is presently at the design stage.
“While awaiting NDDC’s intervention, the community undertook a self-help project and built the wooden bridge. It has no NDDC input. NDDC has not paid out any money for it. In clear terms, this bridge has nothing to do with NDDC.
“We urge our stakeholders to regard the post as part of the propaganda tactics of those who want the NDD, to be scrapped to deny the people of the region the benefit of infrastructural and economic development.
“The fake photograph is a follow-up to the false allegations and campaigns launched by these detractors of the NDDC in the news and social media space and even at the recent public hearing by the National Assembly.
“These forces and their spokespersons are not from the Niger Delta. They are enemies of the region. The people of the Niger Delta have lined up behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s ordered forensic audit exercise.
“That exercise will account for how the projects undertaken by NDDC were done and bring to account those who failed in their responsibilities to the people of the Niger Delta Region.”
Odili said the commission under its current leadership remained committed to ensuring the achievements of its core mandate as the interventionist agency for the Niger Delta region and its people.