Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, has alleged that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) abandoned about $70 million in a bank for 13 years.
Speaking with The Nation during the weekend, Akpabio said that the commission’s high indebtedness is owed to looting under previous administrations.
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“I know of a bank that came to say they have $70 million from 2006, one also came to say N170 million had been abandoned, I’ve forgotten in which administrations in the last 11 years, they said they are ready to refund.
“I said no problem, just hang on, we’ll sort all these out when the forensic (audit) comes in to let us know all the recoverable and all that,” he was quoted saying.
The Niger Delta region has been littered with incomplete projects spanning through successive administrations.
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“People are suffering from cancer and other diseases and no good hospital that one could say was built by the NDDC, equipped for the purposes of a modern-day 21st-century hospital that people could go and have succour,” The Nation quoted him saying.
“Collectively, those things were the things that made me, when I was a governor, to ignore NDDC. Even the quality of works they call roads, within the first rainy season the roads are washed away. It’s years in year out and for me, because I have the experience and I was able to perform as a governor for eight years.”
