LAURETA ONOCHIE: CORRUPTION FIGHTING BACK IN NDDC
By Roland Isibor
The last had not been heard of the face off between the Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Ms Lauretta Onochie and the Managing Director, Mr Samuel Ogbuku.
Penultimate weekend, the duo had been at each others throat accusing each others of corruption.
It is no longer news that Mr Ogbuku who ascended the position of the MD have had a frosty relationship with Onochie and had sort whatever means to reduce her to a mere ceremonial chairman and undermine her constitutional role as the supervising and approving authority as demanded by law.
He had obtained a phantom judgement from Justice Okon Abange who could not see beyond his nose by delivering a skewed judgement which can only be a product of ‘Ghana-must-go’ bag exchanging hands.
From all indications, Ogbuku is on a kill mission whose intent is to finally nail the coffin of the commission that had hitherto been on a life support. He had embarked on a spending spree at the detriment of the region to the extent of renegotiating a 15 Billion dollar rail project without recourse to the supervising authority, (The board). and operating over 300 bank accounts against the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the Buhari administration.
Whoever and whatever is propelling Samuel Ogbuku should know that the raw facts are now bare and that the days of reckoning has finally come.
With the matter finally before the senate committee the peoples representatives who enacted the act, Egbuku should be ready to swallow the bitter pills of his inordinate actions of trying to subvert the will of the Niger Delta people.
The Yusuf committee on their part should be vigilant as Egbuku and his cohorts may not be resting on their oars at perpetually keeping the NDDC down.
We however trust that the Buhari administration will not hesitate to clamp down and remove bad eggs like Egbuku who is bent on feeding fat on the peoples common wealth.
Let it be known that Ms Onochie is a reformer, that has come to clean the rot that had bedeviled the commission and ultimately brought it to its knees.
It cannot be business as usual with a thoroughbred on the saddle.
Roland Isibor writes from Asaba, the Delta State Capital
