Tributes As Pioneer OMPADEC Chairman Horsfall Dies At 84

Tributes have continued to pour in following the death of the pioneer executive chairman of the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), Albert Horsefall.

An elder statesman, Dr Emmanuel Audu-Ohwavborua, described the passing of Horsefall as a great loss to the region and Nigeria.

Horsfall’s tenure saw the evolution of OMPADEC through different phases to the current Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

In a statement made available to journalists in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital at the weekend, Audu-Ohwavborua said Horsefall was a patriot with immense passion for the development of the oil producing Niger Delta region.

“Thursday, 24 September 2026, will remain etched in the annals of the NDDC, the Niger Delta region and, indeed, Nigeria, as a day of solemn remembrance and gratitude for a man whose life and service helped shape an important chapter in the history of our nation.

“For me, and for many whose professional journey has been intertwined with the NDDC, Chief Horsfall was much more than the pioneer Executive Chairman of the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC).

He was one of the foundational figures in the institutional story of Niger Delta development,” Audu – Ohwavborua recalled.

Audu – Ohwavborua, a former director of the Commission, therefore, commended the Board and Management of the NDDC for remembering his legacies by gathering in a solemn assembly at the Commission’s headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to sign the condolence register in his honour.

“The building in which that ceremony took place stands today as a physical reminder of the vision and institutional foundations laid decades ago. Chief Horsfall was at the helm of OMPADEC in the formative years of that intervention, before the OMPADEC framework was eventually replaced by the NDDC established under the NDDC Act of 2000.

“He laid the very foundation stone of that edifice in 1995. I am particularly privileged and humbled by the fact that decades later, precisely in 2017, while serving as Director, Project Monitoring and Supervision (DPMS), the NDDC Management under the leadership of the then MD/CEO, Obong Nsima Ekere, made a decision to complete the project that had been abandoned for decades due to lack of funds.

“The Governing Board backed the Management’s
decision, and consequently the Federal Executive Council approved the re-award of the Completion of The NDDC Headquarters Building to a new contractor in 2017. By 2019, under my watch as Director, PMS, we achieved practical completion of the project to the glory of God.

“Thus, in a very real sense, the NDDC of today stands within a continuum of an idea to which Chief Horsfall gave leadership at a critical moment in the history of the Niger Delta. Long before he became a development administrator in the Niger Delta, he had already distinguished himself in the service of the Nigerian state.

“A Police officer by training (of the Elite Class), and a pioneer member of the former National Security Organisation (NSO), he became one of the architects of Nigeria’s emerging intelligence establishment. He subsequently served as the pioneer Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and later as the second Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), now known as the Department of State Services (DSS),” he recalled.