By Michael Jegede
Notwithstanding the lucid explanation by the Federal Government in denying an alleged extension of the tenure of the current Governing Board of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, the needless raging hullabaloo over the issue has persisted.
Some individuals and groups are threatening a showdown with FG, if the present NDDC board inaugurated in November last year is not dissolved this December, for a new board to be constituted to enable the key positions move to other states of the Niger Delta. Their argument is erroneously based on the rotation provided for in the agency’s Act.
Chairman of the current board is Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba while Mr. Nsima Ekere is Managing Director (MD) of the commission. Ndoma-Egba and Ekere are from Cross River and Akwa Ibom states, respectively.
At the forefront of the call for the termination of the current NDDC board tenure are indigenes of Bayelsa state who are expecting one of them to be appointed MD of the interventionist agency by this December. They are insisting that the present board cannot stay beyond this month as, according to them, it was constituted to complete the tenure of the previous one which was in place for two years before it was dissolved in December 2015. The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) seems to be leading the agitation.
About a month ago, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, in a motion he moved on the floor of the Senate, declared that contrary to the clear provisions of the NDDC Act, the tenure of the present board of the commission has been illegally extended to four years by the immediate past Acting Secretary to Government of the Federation, Dr. Habiba Muda Lawal.
The senator (PDP, Bayelsa central) argued that by the prescription of section 5(2) of the NDDC Act, the present board led by Ndoma-Egba, SAN, is to serve out the remainder of the term of the previous board headed by Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, which ought to expire in December 2017.
But the new SGF, Boss Mustapha, in a letter signed by Dayo Apata, a permanent secretary and Solicitor General of the Federation, avowed that the Ndoma-Egba chaired board is not a continuation of the sacked one led by Ewa-Henshaw.
According to the letter, “Section 5(2) of the act refers to a situation where a vacancy occurs as a result of any of the provisions of section 5(1) of the Act as opposed to when the entire board is dissolved. In this case, the previous board was dissolved and its tenure extinguished.
“Dissolution of the board cannot be categorized as a vacancy under the act. Dissolution signifies total extinguishment of the board, it simply ceases to exist and there cannot be any remainder of any term
which a successor is expected to complete.
“There has to be a fresh composition of the board for a fresh term of four years. Therefore the letters of appointment stating that they were to complete the remainder of the tenure of the previous board is of no effect as the words in a letter cannot override the express provisions of an Act”.
The clarification by the SGF was in line with the legal opinion of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, SAN, earlier conveyed in a letter also signed by Apata. The clear and sound explanation from the office of the SGF may have been the reason the Senate had mellowed down on its probe action that was to be instituted after the Bayelsa senator brought the matter up for debate. The way the Senate leadership handled Paulker’s motion gave the indication that the Red Chamber was determined to support the present NDDC leadership in its commitment to reinvent, transform and reposition the commission for better performance.
Zonal Organizing Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) South-south zone, Paul Obi, had said the clarification made by the presidency regarding the NDDC board tenure was a sweet relief to the initial fear that the “performing board” may be dissolved over “flimsy political antics”.
While stressing the need for the Ndoma-Egba led board to be supported rather dislodged, he observed that it has achieved great strides in its mandate within a short period, adding that “So many terrible roads including the hitherto near impassable Calabar-Itu road, the Calabar-Ikom-Ogoja highway, among others, are now smooth courtesy of the effort of the current board.”
The Niger Delta Youths under the auspices of Youth Initiative for Education, Development and Empowerment of Niger Delta, condemned the call for the dissolution of the Ndoma-Egba headed board. The group fingered the Minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, and former Bayelsa State governor, Timipre Sylva, in the plot to persuade the President to sack the Ndoma-Egba-led board this December, in contradiction of NDDC Act.
A Warri-based legal pundit, Barrister Jesutega Onokpasa, described those insisting that the tenure of the existing board of NDDC should expire by December 2017 as “rabble-rousers and rascally elements” who intend to unilaterally rewrite the enabling law for the National Assembly.
In an open letter to the Senate President, Onokpasa, wrote: “In fact, contrary to what the rather rascally elements who are already arrogantly accusing the President of corruption if the board is not dissolved in December are calling for, it is actually dissolving the board in December that would constitute a monumental illegality since there is simply no mechanism in the enabling law of the NDDC vide which the tenure of a fresh board could be so abridged. In any case, even assuming, without conceding, that the present board, despite its clear fresh mandate and lack of any nexus whatsoever with the previous board, is nevertheless extraordinarily completing the tenure of that board, how can its tenure be deemed to expire this December when there was a sole administrator from Rivers state who served quite a while and comes from a state other than that of the sacked or present managing mirector? …Imagine the utter insolence of supposing that men like Ndoma-Egba and Nsima Ekere, in spite of their sterling credentials of towering performance before they were appointed to their present positions, were only drafted in to complete the tenure of the discredited PDP board they replaced! Somebody out there seriously thinks that an APC board will complete the tenure of a PDP board? In a change dispensation? How do some people even reason?”
Jegede is a media practitioner
