The Pan-Niger Delta Forum has called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), not to restrict his forensic audit and loot recovery to the Niger Delta Development Commission alone, but to also beam his searchlight on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Ports Authority.
PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Ken Robinson, said this on Friday, in a telephone interview with Saturday PUNCH.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that Buhari vowed to recover NDDC funds from looters and punish offenders.
But Robinson described as ridiculous a situation where the Niger Delta region had become a playground for politicians, insisting that attempts should also be made to recover looted funds in the Petroleum Development Trust Fund and other government-owned organisations.
He said, “It is ridiculous and very unfortunate that the Niger Delta has become a playground for politicians. Why go after looted funds of the Niger Delta alone? What of looted funds in the Petroleum Development Trust Fund, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the North -East Development and the Nigerian Ports Authority? Nigeria is a place of looted funds.
“If the President says he wants to recover looted funds, that is fine, but he should not single out the NDDC. If heads are to roll, we are certain with all sense of responsibility that more heads will roll in Aso Rock and in Abuja than in the Niger Delta because those who impoverished the people and took all the juicy contracts are not Niger Delta people.”
Robinson added that the Niger Delta people expected more from the President, maintaining that most of the looting was perpetrated outside the region.
He said, “Just a few of Niger Deltans were used as mere fronts, and were given some peripheral or miniature contracts, but the juicy contracts that were of multi-million and multi-billion scales were done by people outside the Niger Delta.
“For few years now, the President has been an unconcerned spectator in all the sad events that have been happening in the NDDC. He has allowed illegality there for whatever reasons, so his coming out now to say he will recover stolen funds is good, but we expected better from him like the re-inauguration of the NDDC board.”
