WHY does everyone who knows someone in government want to be the next Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC? The reasons may be numerous, but none has relevance to the development of the region, the major reason for creating NDDC nine years ago.

In line with the zoning formula for top positions in NDDC, Rivers State will produce the next Managing Director, a decision Akwa Ibom State contests. It appears settled. What is throwing up more controversies is the part of Rivers State that should produce Nigeria’s next billionaire, even if he comes to the position a pauper.

Personal wealth and political mileage are among the principal attractions of the position. Anyone appointed can become as wealthy as he can stretch his ambition and greed. There are no obstacles to the enterprise, so long as he recognises factors that could affect his tenure and takes care of them.


Communities in Rivers State parade different statistics to prove they are the largest producers of oil and gas in Nigeria. From their logic, a land that delivers that quantum of oil and gas should produce the Managing Director of NDDC. The mystery is how each community has the statistics to strengthen its position on the same issue. Where NDDC is at stake, everything is possible.


One of the possibilities is that whoever is appointed would not improve the lives of the millions of impoverished people in the Niger Delta. NDDC is a behemoth, serving interests of contractors, politicians, traditional rulers, and whosoever that squeezes through a maze of guises and feints set to mimic seriousness. With the vastness of these interests, and what they represent, NDDC cannot serve the people.


Competence is a minor factor in the appointment. None of the communities says it has a candidate who can realise the ambitious mission of NDDC, among them eradicating poverty in the region. If NDDC eradicated poverty, it is of a few, whose stupendous wealth chokes existence out of others.


With matters of such grave import reduced to political choices for the satisfaction of the cravings of a few, it is no wonder that we keep getting the same results from the fixed experiments we make with the lives of our people.


There is no way of knowing who would be chosen, why he would be chosen and what  qualifications he bears that would make a difference to the ways NDDC has been managed. No indications point to concerns about making NDDC better, not with the current tussles over which State produces the Chairman and the next Managing Director.


Contests for positions in NDDC with the attendant superintending of the billions of Naira allocated to the intervention agency is more important to those who control it than how the money is spent.


NDDC, if it works, can improve the living standards of the peoples of the Niger Delta. Its new Managing Director should concentrate on using NDDC to transform the Niger Delta.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37046&Itemid=68

This ia a great job opportunity,  anybody wants to apply?