The Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC and a pressure group, the Niger Delta Rights Advocate , NDRA, are bickering over the proposed commissioning of Nembe/Ogbia road project.
NDDC
Head of Corporate Affairs, Charles Obi Odili had in a press statement
issued in Port Harcourt on Tuesday said that the Commission has invited
President Muhammadu Buhari to commission the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe
Road in Bayelsa State. The road, built in conjunction with the Shell
Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, was said to have created a land
link to the ancient city of Nembe for the first time.
Mr
Charles Odili disclosed in his statement that NDDC management has
extended invitation to Mr President through the Minister for Niger
Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio for the commissioning of the
project.
Odili noted
that the road project, which costs N24 billion, cutting through swampy
terrain with spurs to 14 other communities, needed 10 bridges and 99
culverts. “To conquer the swampy terrain. The construction involved
digging out four metres of clay soil and sand filling it to provide a
base for the road,” he observed.
But NDRA in a statement signed by its Spokesman , Darlington Nwauju said NDDC invitation to President Buhari is a spirited deception targeted at hoodwinking the Presidency in the guise of extending invitation for the commissioning of the 29kilometre Ogbia-Nembe road in Bayelsa state.
It stated that the said project was completed and commissioned by Professor Nelson Brambaifa led NDDC IMC in 2019 and argued that on the 8th day of July 2019, the former Governor of Bayelsa state, Hon Henry Seriake Dickson did publicly commend the then NDDC IMC for completing the project without media glitz or fanfare.
The group called on President Buhari not to rub the Presidency of Nigeria with the mud of corruption by endorsing the continuous dramatization of corruption at the NDDC.