Since President Muhamadu Buhari conceded to the request by governors of member states of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to authorize the forensic audit of the agency in October 2019, there has been a gale of twists and turns which often mask the real purpose of the exercise.
In approving the forensic audit, Buhari had stated that “With the amount of money that the Federal Government has religiously allocated to the NDDC, we will like to see the result on the ground.
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Those that are responsible for that have to explain certain issues.
The projects said to have been done must be verifiable”.
It is the Presidential imprimatur which was conveyed by his statement that has steeped the NDDC forensic audit in the ambience of trepidation, as the guilty in the circumstances are afraid.
And as is widely feared, with Buhari’s body language whosoever is indicted by the exercise may not go scot free.
Among the complement of notable twists is the most recent one whereby a member of the Commission’s Interim Management Committee (IMC) and specifically the Director of Projects Cairo Ojuogboh, declared that if the revelations from the forensic audit are made public, Nigeria will split.
Such an alarming statement coming even before the conclusion of the forensic audit exercise, generated several questions and issues which hardly offered comfort to well thinking Nigerians within and outside the Niger Delta region.
Ever since, responses to Ojuogboh’s take have thronged the public space even as they fall under several distinct schools of thought.
One lobby has it that he could have spoken in deference to pressures from some powers that be, who are likely culpable for their respective roles in looting of the Commission’s largesse over time, and may want the outcome of any probe into the agency’s operations, killed.
Another school has it that by his statement he has even betrayed the entire forensic audit exercise as initially intended to be a hoax, which was not to see the light of day.
In one vein, both arguments point in the same direction of denigrating the forensic audit exercise as programmed to fail and deny Nigerians the benefits of getting to the root of the Commission’s woes, and perhaps perpetuating same after now.
In another is the other viewpoint which encourages the IMC to press on with the exercise, which they see as a master stroke to save the Niger Delta by the President.
As has been argued in this column earlier, the ongoing forensic audit of the NDDC which covers the period 2001 -2019 (the entire life of the agency), cannot be a tea party.
Beyond the systemic challenges of sorting out valid documents along with swindle sheets, are other issues that border on compromised institutional memory and political pressures from sundry quarters.
Hence by amplifying the humongous scope of hemorrhage in the finances of the Commission, through the hyperbolic allusion of comparing it with the unity of the country, Ojiogboh has conjured a scenario that tallies with the worst fears ever expressed for the NDDC.
Put otherwise, the scope of abuse in the NDDC which the audit is intended to unravel may be unheard of, in the annals of the country.
However, such a situation as outlined above will hardly be surprising as the NDDC had operated from inception as being rigged to serve as a paymaster of sorts in the Niger Delta creeks, for any party in office and power in Abuja.
Little wonder that it has been plagued by an unending stream of malfeasances, throughput its life leading to the conduct of the forensic audit.
In the course of its life it has witnessed a welter of crises featuring bitter infighting among its operatives as well as between sundry stakeholders to a point that it became necessary for the governors of the Niger Delta states to meet the President on its reinvention.
What Nigerians want to know now is, who are the actual faces that committed the rape of the Commission as well as dispossessed the zone of its development, and how to make them account for the outrage.
One area that lends credence to Ojuogboh’s juxtaposition of the humongous scope of the financial mess in NDDC with the unity of the country is the anticipated high incidence of the ‘who is who’ in the country, whose names may appear in the list of dishonor and who may actually hail from outside the Niger Delta member state, being the purview of the NDDC.
As things run in Nigeria, it will also not be surprising that much of the resources of the Commission were appropriated in favour of proxies who are standing in for some highly placed beneficiaries.
In this context some of the culprits may even be among those who have been most trenchant in indicting the IMC.
It is the prospects of unmasking these culprits in high places that make Ojuogboh’s statement most interesting as it has activated the appetite of Nigerians over knowing who did what in the serial plunder of the NDDC.
Many are of the view that the very factor of the sensitivity of the outcome of the audit exercise justifies why such should be given maximum exposure, in the public domain.
Granted that the potential culprits that may be indicted by the forensic audit exercise have had their liberties in executing their nefarious activities, they should equally not be allowed to escape the coming blame, cage and shame cycle of retribution, which is their deserved lot.
Interestingly and assuredly, Nigeria is too big and consolidated to break up over the shenanigans of a few crooks.
Rather, their exposure and discipline shall serve as the foundation of a reinvented NDDC, renewed hope in the country across the Niger Delta region, and by extension a more justiciable Nigeria.
Danjuma Lawan, ‘Penpoint’ salutes your enterprise.
Every editor of a regular periodical knows the difficulty in managing columnists, especially those that are not in-house.
What with the challenge of making them catch up with deadlines in production and the sheer gritty aspect of reading and reconciling dozens of scripts with the publication’s house style.
One man who has done it with panache in the Daily Trust stable, especially on the desks of the Saturday and Sunday titles was Danjuma Lawan.
As every good thing made by man has an expiry date, so has he signed off from editing the PENPOINT column along with several others to chase a new calling in life.
This is wishing you ‘Bon Voyage’ in your future endeavours.
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