OPINION : Fredrick Nwabufo: Asari Dokubo, Edwin Clark, ND Avengers; why no outrage over iniquity at NDDC?

There is no executive or administrative corruption without civil partnerships. What we often see on the surface as corruption in government agencies is deeply tap-rooted — with connectors to social crusaders, polemists, activists and civic groups. Corruption in Nigeria has a long value chain.

The probe of the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) over serious allegations of corruption by the national assembly is two peas in a pod. The NDDC is like a cookie jar, those probing and those under probe all have their hands stuck in it.

Last Thursday, Kemebradikumo Pondei, acting managing director of the NDDC, stormed out of a session with the house of representatives panel investigating the agency. He accused Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, chairman of the house committee on NDDC, of complicity in the fraud at the commission. He said the committee chairman cannot sit in judgment on a case in which he is a suspect.

A similar spectacle played out at the senate a few weeks ago. The NDDC management and Godswill Akpabio, minister of Niger Delta affairs, as a coterie, traded recriminations with the senate committee probing the agency for alleged N81.5 billion fraud.

Peter Nwaoboshi, chairman of the senate committee on NDDC, accused Akpabio of commandeering a N300 million fencing contract from the commission. The minister, not to be out-shamed, accused the senator of expropriating a N3.6 billion contract using 11 phony companies.

Do you think anything worth the time of Nigerians – beyond the entertainment value of the live sessions – can fall out of these probes? I do not think so. I have witnessed enough probes by the national assembly over the years — even with all the theatrics and fireworks – to predict how these ones will taper out.

Now, this is the crux of the probes. The probes are essentially about deal-brokering. The audit of the operations of the NDDC from 2001 and 2019 will bring to the fore lots of interred skeletons involving those at the national assembly and those at the composite quarters of national corruption. Though I believe the process of the audit is already tainted, it must go on.

So, it is a convenient tactic to hold the dirt of the interim management of the NDDC supervising the audit in the air for an eventual entente. Really, what is happening now is a crossfire of blackmail and intimidation. It is the threat of mutually assured destruction before the ‘’meeting at the table of kindreds’’. The probes will go the way of other probes.

Nevertheless, the revelations from these probes should be ammunition for all Nigerians and those directly affected by the sleaze at the NDDC; in this case, the people of the Niger Delta. Why is Chief Edwin Clark, the foremost Ijaw leader, taciturn? Why is he not spitting fire like he often does when issues of resource control and marginalisation of the Niger Delta are on the table? Or is the mindboggling thievery allegedly perpetrated by the sons of the region of no consequence because they are natives?

Where is Asari Dokubo, the defender of the Niger Delta, who has been vociferous on all national issues? Is the sleaze at the NDDC not worth raising hell and threatening apocalypse over? Where are the Niger Delta Avengers? Is the NDDC corruption bazaar not a cause to undertake a peaceful citizen action for? Or do the avengers only avenge when it involves a certain Sani, Musa, Taiwo or Nnamdi?

Why is there no outrage in the Niger Delta?

This same silence of the Niger Delta was palpable during the administration of Goodluck Jonathan which was in throes of cosmic allegations of corruption. So, it is clear here that the agitations of the region over the years have a heavy ethnic burden.

Really, we do not hate corruption. We only hate where the corrupt person comes from. Let me rephrase that. Corruption matters to us only when the ethnic background of the accused is in the equation.

The Niger Delta losing its voice at this time of great consequence for the region will always haunt it.

Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and journalist

Twitter: @FredrickNwabufo

God bless you OP.
Most of them freedom fighters are scammers.

Only Nnamdi KANU stands out.

After all this NDDC saga,

they'll still have the guts to say that northerners are being brainwashed by their leaders because their own leaders have convinced them that other than forests, mud houses and hunger, there is nothing in the north.

One guy on twitter even said that people travel on horses and camel in Sokoto I even thought he was only joking before realizing that he truly believed it

The plight of the millions of poor people in the south is hidden in the perception and the belief that poverty is a northern problem.

Ok

They're waiting to attack Nnamdi Kanu( God's child).

Ndi iberibe!

Arrewa:
Niger Delta and hypocrisy 5,6

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

They are carried along, out can see Apkabio try to implicate the lawmakers, he exposed them that aren't clean, that was why the chairman of the investigative panel ran away.

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

tell that to Buhari...

This is the region that do receives 13% oil derivation.

This same region also receive 10 times the Allocations of northern region

Arrewa:
tell that to Buhari...

You are his Yoruba supporter na ...

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

Shatap.

I'm from the Niger Delta, itsekiri to be precise and you cannot tell me the money is for the criminals amongst us.

We need roads, water and hospitals of modern standard.

I don't know why you Yeebos would be promoting in another man's land what you would not tolerate.

Golan007:


Shatap.

I'm from the Niger Delta, itsekiri to be precise and you cannot tell me the money is for the criminals amongst us.

We need roads, water and hospitals of modern standard.

I don't know why you Yeebos would be promoting in another man's land what you would not tolerate.

That's your business ,.... because your brothers are eating your money ( 25%) means u would allow outsiders to eat the majority ?

Take your oil money let us rest ...anyhow u want to spend it is not a national issue but your personal problem

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

The money belongs to the , millions of Niger Deltans not the few ones. Use your sense for once

They'll not talk do to their involvement in the fraud.

I have been saying it and will continue to say it. We have become so clanish in this country that the strength of our revolt or revulsion for a perceived wrongdoing is predicated on the identity of its perpetrator.

It is okay if "one of our own" is the snag to our progress and not okay if an outsider is, notwithstanding the fact that both would exert exactly the same hinderance to our collective success.

That is Nigeria for you and that is the reason why there is no uproar in the Niger Delta over the revelations of monumental malfeasance in the body. Of course the reactions would have been different if someone from the North was the one heading the body. Perhaps the militants would have been blowing up pipelines by now.

Nigeria is in a really sorry state.

mrvitalis:

That's your business ,.... because your brothers are eating your money ( 25%) means u would allow outsiders to eat the majority ?

Take your oil money let us rest ...anyhow u want to spend it is not a national issue but your personal problem

Don't you ever comment when we are admonishing our own.

My brothers and sisters on scholarship are just lamenting non-payment of their dues whilst the elite are stealing billions without conscience.

Do not tell us what we should accept. We would determine that ourselves.

hisgrace090:
They'll not talk do to their involvement in the fraud.

They are the beneficiaries now. Pim, you will not hear from them

Golan007:


Don't you ever comment when we are admonishing our own.

My brothers and sisters on scholarship are just lamenting non-payment of their dues whilst the elite are stealing billions without conscience.

Do not tell us what we should accept we would determine that ourselves.

Pls kindly ignore that Nonentity, his ability to think/ reason has been taken away from him.

Golan007:


Shatap.

I'm from the Niger Delta, itsekiri to be precise and you cannot tell me the money is for the criminals amongst us.

We need roads, water and hospitals of modern standard.

I don't know why you Yeebos would be promoting in another man's land what you would not tolerate.

Ignore that boy. He does not reason before he talks

They get cuts

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

This should easily lift the trophy for the most idiotic comment since the creation of Nairaland.

The worst of Musiwa's comments should make more sense than this.

If, peradventure, South East Development Comission is established and the Theodore Orjis, Chimaroke Nnamanis, Ikpeazus and Obianos of the East fritter away funds allocated to the region through the body, is this what you would say about it?

Yet you claim to love the people of Niger Delta.

Smh.

The definition of corruption is different in Nigeria: when it involves my friend & I chop inside, it is Connection; if and when I don't know the perpetrators, then it's Corruption.

You do not need to be a soothsayer to know they are also involved. It cuts across the length and breadth of our nation.

The NASS and Akpabio are doing: if you taka me, I dabo you.

Don't forget we were all taught this by our folks and elders: do not talk while eating.

Let no one be deceived. The only reason these things keep going on is because the so called agitators and elder statesmen always get their share of the loot without fail. Agitation only comes when the flow is cut - the black man is indeed useless to himself.

obailala:
Let no one be deceived. The only reason these things keep going on is because the so called agitators and elder statesmen always get their share of the loot without fail. Agitation only comes when the flow is cut - the black man is indeed useless to himself.

You really know their ways. Don't be surprised, if tomorrow you begin to see pipelines vandalization.

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

How exactly do humans develop this kind of putrid mentality? Even educated humans?... Nigeria's really sick!

Was just discussing yesterday how physical and mental poverty has crippled the ability of Nigerians to ever hold leaders to account. Also mentioned how no matter the revelations from the NDDC probe, it will still be the suffering victims that would defend their oppressors, purely based on ethnicity. And now just legodi what this one is saying...

Who be avengers?

Why is the shout of corruption in NDDC louder now than before Akpabio became the minister? Only an idiotic dumbass will believe that the level of corruption being laminated in NDDC occurred these few months Akpabio assumed the reign of the ministry housing the commission. I do not want to believe that these goons raising delusional voices are people who have silly presumption that NDDC belongs to a certain ethnicity in the illogical area called Niger Delta. Mr. Akpabio is bent on uncovering the paths of corruption in the commission and certain class of rogues who have made NDDC their backyard garden seemed to be disturbed. How did Joy Nunieh acquired such a plush quarters decorated with pricy vehicles yet she is mere civil servant?

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

You need to arrest the dumbest person in the world, nobody can ever win you in that except rigging their way in

Logical answer is that they (clarke , dukubo nd the avengers) got their cut! Its nigeria.....

mrvitalis:

Shut up ...the money is there money , let their brothers eat it ...maybe if we leave their oil money they can eat 50% and use 50% to work ... instead of this 25% they are getting

wht kind of rubbish reasoning is this? U don jam strong grass abi wetin!