Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
A civil society organisation, Niger Rights Advocates, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to invoke his powers in the Act establishing the Niger Delta Development Commission and rescue stranded scholarship students of the commission abroad.
Spokesperson, NDRA, Darlington Nwauju, said the organisation was disturbed by the foreign image of the youths carrying placards against the Federal Government because of the failures of the NDDC to pay them.
Nwauju in a statement on Friday said the N85.6million credited in the accounts of management employees of the commission in the name of attending a graduation ceremony in the UK should have been channelled towards settling the bills of the students.
NDRA was among the organisations, which made presentations to the House of Representatives Committee investigating allegations of funds mismanagement in the NDDC.
Nwauju said, “We invite the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Buhari, who has powers under the NDDC Establishment Act to direct, control and supervise the Agency, to immediately order for the settlement of all stipends and upkeep allowance of these ambassadors of the region, who chose the honest path of hard work rather than relocating to the creeks for criminality.
“We shall remain undaunted in the task of demanding the rapid and equal development of our region. Our group has been inundated with calls from our brothers and sisters, who are beneficiaries of the NDDC foreign scholarship scheme.
“As at today, human capital development index in our region is still at its lowest ebb, worsened by the fact that our youths who are beneficiaries of this scheme have always had a prolonged and recurring history of being abandoned every now and again.
“Shamefully and inhumanly, while these future leaders of our long-suffering region are thrown out of their accommodations and left at the mercy of the elements, the NDDC IMC continues day by day to pay for so-called ‘legacy contracts’ with no social impact on the masses of our people.
“The NDRA is disturbed by the image on TV of our youths carrying placards against the Federal Government and the NDDC for the irresponsibility and obvious lack of proper planning on the part of the NDDC.
“We demand that a structured and seamless payment protocol be adopted forthwith in order to avoid this recurring embarrassment our scholars have to face before their stipends are paid.
“We wonder why the sum of N85.6million naira should be credited into the accounts of Management staff of the NDDC in the name of attending graduation ceremony in the UK whereas, this sum of money should have been channelled towards settling the bills of our scholars abroad.”