Niger Delta Development Commission

The Niger Delta Development Commission is a Federal Government agency established by Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo in the year 2000 with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria. In September 2008, President Umaru Yar'Adua announced the formation of a Niger Delta Ministry, with the Niger Delta Development Commission to become a parastatal under the ministry.^[1]

Background

The NDDC was created largely as a response to the demands of the population of the Niger Delta, a populous area inhabited by a diversity of minority ethnic groups. During the 1990s these ethnic groups, most notably the Ijaw and the Ogoni established organisations to confront the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies such as Shell. The minorities of the Niger Delta have continued to agitate and articulate demands for greater autonomy and control of the area's petroleum resources. They justify their grievances by reference to the extensive environmental degradation and pollution from oil activities that have occurred in the region since the late 1950s. However, the minority communities of oil producing areas have received little or no currency from the oil industry and environmental remediation measures are limited and negligible. The region is highly underdeveloped and is poor even by Nigeria's standards for quality of life.

Sometimes violent confrontation with the state and oil companies, as well as with other communities has constrained oil production as disaffected youth or organisations deliberately disrupt oil operations in attempts to effect change. These disruptions have been extremely costly to the Nigerian oil industry, and both the multinationals and the federal government have vested interests in permitting uninterrupted extraction operations; the NDDC is a result of these concerns and is an attempt to satisfy the demands of the delta's population.

Mandate and operations

The NDDC operates under the mandate of improving social and environmental conditions in the South-South region, which it acknowledges as horrific in its own reports. However, the organisation has come under scrutiny and according to some is generally regarded as vehicle of corruption and prebendalism.

To achieve its mandate, the NDDC board identified the following areas of focus: Development of social and physical infrastructure Technology Economic revival and prosperity Ecological/environmental remediation and stability Human development

Executive Chairman

The position of Executive Chairman of the NDDC has been a subject of much debate. A compromise was reached where the position would be rotated within the nine oil producing states in alphabetical order: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers.

References

• NDDC: When ambitions flow like rivers
• Alaibe, New NDDC Boss, Sets Targets
• Senator Ararume Lauds NDDC
• NDDC is reconstructing the destruction of 50 years
• Boost for Nigeria Delta

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