The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and a pressure group, Niger-Delta Rights Advocate (NDRA), are bickering over the proposed commissioning of Nembe/Ogbia road project.
NDDC’s Head of Corporate Affairs Charles Obi Odili had in a press statement issued in Port Harcourt said President Muhammadu Buhari has been ivited to commission the 29-kilometre Ogbia-Nembe road in Bayelsa State.
The road, built in conjunction with Shell Petroleum Development Company, was said to have created a land link to the ancient city of Nembe for the first time.
Mr Charles Odili disclosed in the statement that NDDC management had extended an invitation the President through the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, for the commissioning of the project.
Odili noted that the road project, which cost N24 billion, cutting through swampy terrain with spurs to 14 other communities, needed 10 bridges and 99 culverts.
However, NDRA in a statement signed by its spokesman, Darlington Nwauju, said NDDC’s invitation to President Buhari is a spirited deception targeted at hoodwinking the presidency in the guise of extending invitation for the commissioning of the 29 kilometre Ogbia-Nembe road in Bayelsa State.
It stated that the said project was completed and commissioned by the Professor Nelson Brambaifa-led NDDC in 2019 and argued that July 8, 2019, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Seriake Dickson, publicly commended the then NDDC IMC for completing the project without media glitz or fanfare.
