Women to Buhari, Akpabio: We’ll protest naked to demand NDDC board

ONYEDI GABRIEL, Port Harcourt

Women from the Niger Delta region have vowed to protest naked if after seven days President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio refuse to inaugurate the substantive board of the commission.

The women, consisting of activists, opinion leaders and professionals drawn from the nine states of the region, under the auspices of Wailing Women of Niger Delta (WWND), said that the people of the region had been taken for granted for too long while those they looked up to had let them down.

The women, who were also accompanied by some members of the Integrity Friends for Truth and Peace Initiative (TIFPI), noted that lack of substantive board for NDDC had impoverished the region and denied them many opportunities.

Reading their position in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Monday, the President of WWND, Oney Nwadighi, who is a lawyer said: 

“We see a clear class conspiracy to privatize the NDDC at the detriment of our people. 

“Unfortunately our men and fathers have given up and gone to sleep while our region gropes in the dark of underdevelopment under the current watch. On this, we hold Senator Godswill Akpabio, the supervising Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs fully responsible for the grave degeneration and irregularities in the region and the NDDC.

“We demand that the Federal Government should within the next seven days constitute the substantive board of the NDDC including the Governors Advisory Council of the Commission in keeping with the relevant provisions of the NDDC Act. 

“This demand is with immediate effect because it is provided for in Law. We are not anarchists. There is no need for the NDDC to function with tax payer’s and oil monies to enrich a few who have connived not to account for the billions of dollars that have kept on accruing to the Commission up till today”.

They asked Akpabio to account for all the billions of naira that accrued to NDDC during the two-year period of the ongoing regime.

They said: “We demand the immediate publication of the forensic audit report by the President. It is a public document and the Federal Government owes a duty of transparency if there must be no secrecy to shield anybody indicted.

“We demand that all monies that have been accrued to the NDDC from the inception of the Interim or Acting Managements beginning from Prof. Nelson Brambaifa till date be brought to account without any mischievous delays. 

“This includes particularly the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who should account for all the monies accrued under his supervision of the NDDC and all those running the affairs of the commission under him till date. This is to the effect that they have not accounted for the billions of naira allocated to the NDDC and have nothing to show for it. 

“We are aware of the grand plan to sustain the current illegal Interim Management and Sole Administratorship structure till the end of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration. This will not be acceptable because it is illegal and Mr. President is enjoined to rise to the Oath of his office in the interest of peace and justice. 

“Should our demands not be met within the period of this ultimatum, as mothers and women of the region, we shall enforce our rights to do the needful including approaching the court and shutting down the NDDC through lawful means until this injustice stops. 

“Enough is enough. We will not take it. The Federal Government and Senator Godswill Akpabio can no longer take the Niger Delta for a ride. We shall come out naked and insist on our right as the burden bearers of the region. It shall no longer be business as usual. They should get ready to kill us all”.

The aggrieved women posited that there were no more excuses to keep delaying the board’s inauguration other than undermining the core mandates of NDDC.

“We have lost every economic, social and infrastructure development opportunities that can only be implemented by a board of the NDDC and the region is worse hit. We are asking for a board and the Governors Advisory Council among others. In doing so, we want women to be duly integrated in the process and they must be people who are in touch with our people in the communities. 

“We have officially written letters to the Federal Government through the relevant offices driving home the demands herein established.  The federal government must not set up the Niger Delta for a looming implosion because a major crisis is imminent and it must be avoided as a result of the lack of  NDDC Board which Senator Godswill Akpabio and his allies are prosecuting against the region. 

“We the women are the most impacted by the injustice in the region. The infrastructure deficit is huge and incalculable. While we demand the immediate constitution of the board, we the women of the Niger Delta region, therefore, insist on the recovery of stolen monies through conduit contracts to show that the government is serious”.