An accountability and advocacy group, the Citizens Quest for Truth Initiative has dismissed the National Assembly’s probe of the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as a mere ruse that cannot midwife the desired transformation in the commission.
It insisted that the outcome of the “much touted” probe is premeditated, adding that no meaningful probe can be carried out by same persons who have been directly or remotely involved in the plundering of the interventionist agency.
The group, which participated and made presentations at the public hearing at the both chambers, expressed dissatisfaction with the exercise, noting that the committee was merely pretending to be objective and fighting for the “beleaguered Niger Delta people.”
They argued that blaming the five-month-old Interim Management Committee for the over two decades financial malfeasance in the commission, amouned to getting a scapegoat to take the blame, while the perpetrators go scot free.
According to a statement signed by its president and publicity secretary, Chief Obiaruko Christie Ndukwe and Francis Ndimkoha, respectively, the group stressed that, “it is funny how the cabal that has held down the NDDC for two decades are now the same set of people posturing with a holier- than -thou disposition and suffocating the media space with tales of how the five month-old IIMC of the NDDC suddenly became the reason the commission failed to achieve its core mandate, in the past 20 years”.
