NDDC: Coalition of 16 Niger Delta groups write President Buhari, seek sack of Interim Mgt

•••Backs ordered forensic audit

TRACKING____A coalition of sixteen Niger Delta groups have written a protest letter to President Muhammadu Buhari over the continued operations of the Interim Management Committee headed by Joi Nuinieh and her illegal Interim Management Committee.

The coalition of the Niger Delta groups, in a statement jointly signed by its conveners, Mr Pureh Kalango (National Coordinator Person Not Party), Secretary Engr Abiye Achepaka (President Ijaw Professionals and Entrepreneurs Association IPYED) and comrade Saint Mienpamo Onitsha (State Chairman PANDLEAF Bayelsa State), noted that the law governing the NDDC, which is the NDDC Act 2000, as amended, has no provision for the appointment of an interim committee.

According to the groups, ‘As a coalition we are of the belief that the continuous stay of the illegal interim management committee will deepen the level of animosity among member states because some states have been marginalized and deprived of their legitimate right to occupy certain positions based on the zoning formula enshrined in the NDDC Act’.

On his part, Pureh Kalango, the National Coordinator Person Not Party, reiterated the fact that the Hon Minister of the Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio, as a leader, is aware of the crisis the foisting of this illegal IMC on the NDDC instead of a proper board has done to the people of the Niger Delta’

‘We are also aware that the publicized forensic audit will only be a success when an independent body carries out this task not a committee made up of politicians with personal and partisan interest’.

In the five point resolution, included in the letter to the President, (National Coordinator Person Not Party) Pureh Kalango told newsmen that the Coalition pointed out that a team will be put together to meet the leadership of the national assembly and a massive sensitization in the media on the need to stop this illegal committee in NDDC’

‘We have also called on major stakeholders to intervene in the crisis in the NDDC and we are ready to organize peaceful protest in the Niger Delta states and the FCT to appeal to Mr President to end this injustice in the NDDC.”