MAYOR OF URHOBOLAND CONGRATULATES MINISTER,  CALLS FOR INAUGURATION Of NDDC BOARD



The Mayor of Urhoboland, His Excellency, Eshanekpe Israel, a.k.a Akpodoro has congratulated the newly appointed Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Umana Ukoh Umana. 


This was contained in a congratulatory message on the website of His Excellency wherein he hail the appointment of the former chief executive of the Oil and Gas Free zone.


Mayor Akpodoro described Umana's appointment as well deserved and a call to serve his Niger Delta people noting that he has the assurance that with the Okoh Umana as the helm of the Niger Delta Ministry, a new dawn is certain. 


He said Okoh Umana will no doubt develop the region as against the stagnation it witnessed under previous Ministers who only used the Ministry as a platform for politicking and self agrandisement a development he said drew back the Delta region and her people in terms of human and material development. 


The people of the region he noted have no doubt in their minds that the new Minister will turn around the misfortune of the people people by engaging and speaking to the needs of all in the region as he decried the poor state of East-West Road that he noted  has been abandoned while leaving road users to their fate. 


According to the Mayor, the Minister should as a matter of urgency fix the road and ensure that he builds the capacity of the teeming youths of the region to meet with up with their peers in other parts of the country.


He called on the new Minister to set machineries in motion for the inauguration of the board of, Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, as screened by the Senator Ahmah Lawan-led Senate noting that the absence of a substantive board of the regional development agency is retarding development across spheres of life. 


He noted that, in good faith, the President had nominated credible persons to the board of the NDDC and subsequently requested the Senate to screen them and assignment which the Senate carried out with clinical efficiency only for unseen forces to throw in a clog in the wheel of the progree already made by the 9th Senate so as to promote profligacy in the management of the Agency by proxy through sole administratorship. 


The Mayor stated emphatically that the Delta region is vehemently opposed to the continued management of the affairs of the Commission by a Sole administrator as he called on the new Minister to immediately liase with the President and inaugurate the screened board without further delay. 


"This administration has done enough to provoke the people pushing us to the point that we react. Now, we shall resist any attempt at furthering the insult on us by retaining the sole administratorship on the Board of the NDDC. 


"We shall not allow this FG insult our common sensibilities further in the name of an unending forensic investigation that has yielded no dividend other promoting sleaze, retarding growth and development of the region leaving the people hopeless. Mr Buhari should inaugurate this board and let the region move forward developmentally. The North East Commission, is productively functioning under a substantive management, why subjugate the NDDC to persons who didn't mean well for the region?" The Mayor queried.