By Celsus Ohain
That the creation of the NIger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was a necessity to redress the ecological, social and economic dislocation of the Niger Delta region over decades of wide-scale oil exploration is not an overstatement.
A good initiative it was indeed though its operations and performance since creation has left much to be desired. Many think that the huge yearly budgetary allocations to it do not match the scope of development on ground, unfortunately making many perceptive Nigerians to come to see the commission as another cesspool of corruption among other institutions in the country that share such unholy toga.
For now, there is no need to cry over spilled milk. What is imperative rather; and of urgent necessity is to put the NDDC on its right footing again and make it live up to its expectations as at when it was set up.
Such has become apt as a new government under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has taken charge at the Federal level. It then behoves it to be circumspect to pick a new team of helmsmen for the Commission so as to now purposefully achieve its true mandate. This time around, careful choices and selection of competent and honest persons must take absolute primacy in the composition of the board.
We aware of certain basic considerations, as the instruments setting up the commission defines, that should be made during composition but certainly not at the expense of excellence and personal integrity.
As it appears now, it is the turn of Edo State to produce the next Chairman of the board of the NDDC, being one of the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta region.
A consensus personality on the lips of many stakeholders in the state, nay, the South-South geo-political region; is a veteran journalist and politician – Comrade Godwin Erhahon.
Well known in media and political circles as a thoroughbred professional and a politician cut out in the progressive mold, the first elected Chairman of the Edo State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) will be an excellent choice for the noble job, being one not given to frivolities or inclined in any form to corrupt tendencies.
He was the Edo State Chairman of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the pioneer State Publicity Secretary of the APC. He is also a notable leader of the leading oil and gas producing Ward in Edo State. His pedigree is good!
No doubt, other names will be put forth to join the team but what must be uppermost in the mind of the President are competence, trust, integrity and the fear of God.
*(Celsus Ohain, a veteran journalist and scholar of Global Diplomacy writes from Benin City)
