Godswill Akpabio, minister of Niger Delta affairs, got a
N300 million contract for the fencing of
Federal Polytechnic Ukana, Akwa Ibom, (N200 million), and Federal Government
College, Ikot Ekpene (N100 million), according to the senate committee on Niger
Delta.
According to Peter Nwaoboshi, chairman of the committee,
Akoabio got the contracts from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
In a letter seen, in 2017 when Akpabio was the
senator representing Akwa Ibom north-west, he requested a N500 million contract
from the NCDC.
Aside the N300 million for fencing, N150 million was for
entrepreneurship training on the use of modern farming implements for youths
and women of Akwa Ibom north-west senatorial district.
Another N50 million was for the renovation of a hostel at
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu state.
All the projects were requested to be put into the NDDC
budget at the time, according to Nwaoboshi.
Nwaobosho told journalists on Wednesday that the contracts
were fully paid for but there was nothing to show for it.
“Findings show that while there was no physical evidence of
implementation of these projects, checks show contracts were awarded and fully
paid for,” Nwaoboshi said.
“Such practices have turned the region to sites of abandoned
projects.”
After President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic audit of
the operations of the NDDC from its inception in 2001 to 2019, Akpabio lamented
that the commission had become known for abandoned projects as politicians
“turned it to their ATM“.
“We have also had a lot of political interference, people
have not allowed NDDC to work as it ought to, people coming with ideas not to
move the region forward but to move their pockets forward. It has always been
so… I think people were treating the place as an ATM, where you just walk in
there to go and pluck money and go away, I don’t think they were looking at it
as an interventionist agency,” he had said.
The president has appointed an interim management committee
for the commission. However, the senate raised a panel to probe the committee
over alleged mismanagement of N40 billion.
But Kemebradikumo Pondei, acting managing director of the
NDDC, had accused the federal lawmakers of witch-hunt, alleging that they
inserted non-existent projects in the budget of the commission.
On Tuesday, Akpabio said he would not allow the NDDC to be
raped under his watch.
He was responding to the allegation of Nwaoboshi, who
initially spoke of the N500 million contract but did not release any document.
In his response, Akpabio had said the letter eventually
released by Nwaoboshi was on recommendations for zonal intervention projects as
requested by the leadership of the senate.
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