Dr Joy Nunieh, a former Acting Managing Director of the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has accused the Minister of Niger-Delta Affairs, Mr Godswill Akpabio, of meddlesomeness and taking over the affairs of the commission from day one when she assumed office on Oct. 28, 2019.
She said right from the day she was inaugurated in Akpabio’s office she got the first threat that she would be fired if she failed to do the minister’s bidding.
“The minister asked me to come into his car and on the way he said: see this pen, the same pen that l used to sign your appointment is the pen l will use to remove you if you fail to carry out my instructions,’’ Nunieh told the House of Representatives Committee probing allegations of illegal expenditure and mismanagement by the commission on Friday in a virtual meeting.
NDDC’s Interim Management Committee members, led by the acting Managing Director, Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei, appeared before the House committee but later walked out of the sitting after insisting that the panel chairman, Mr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, must step down. The House committee then issued a warrant for the arrest of the IMC members.
Persecondnews recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari had warned ministers against getting involved in the day-to-day running of the agencies and departments under their ministries.
On July 16, some policemen, who were sent from Abuja, invaded Nunieh’s residence in Port Harcourt.
It, however, took the intervention of Rivers Gov. Nyesom Wike, who stormed her house and ferried her to Government House and asked the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu, to probe the invasion.
Nunieh said in her testimony: “He asked me to change the dollars in the commission’s coffers but l refused and did not spend it and left it intact till l left.
“Akpabio also asked me to remove or redeploy the only Northerner in the NDDC and other directors that he is occupying a sensitive position in the organization. But l declined and I said sir Mr Katulgo was my classmate at Law School ad that he has committed no wrong or offence to justify his redeployment.
“He said the first thing I would do is to write a letter to him – he gave me the draft, that I should put it on my letterhead. In that letter, I was supposed to write about most of the companies; Senator (Peter) Nwaboshi owned the 98 companies.
“I never ever told the world that Senator Nwaboshi was the senator that was collecting the N1bn. The issue of the N1bn was different. I said ‘how can an individual be collecting N1bn every month?’ The case of Senator Nwaboshi is the case of the 98 files which I was supposed to write about.”
Besides, she also accused Akpabio of taking over the forensic audit of the commission which was ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“Akpabio insisted that he will supervise the forensic audit after l had prepared all the documents for the audit. He breached the laws and brought in an auditor and l said he is not a forensic audit expert.
“What I met was not exactly what is going on. Akpabio insisted that he would supervise the forensic audit. I reminded him and showed him the letter that the President had written, that there is no way we could spend the money that was in our budget.
“In his memo to the President, he requested that the money for the funding of the forensic audit be gotten from the Service Wide Vote. Mr President, in his wisdom, refused that request and in writing said it should be from NDDC’s appropriation, making NDDC the producing entity,’’ Nunieh said at the public hearing monitored by Persecondnews.
She added: “The lead consultant that everyone is talking about is not the forensic auditor. He does not have a lot. The role of the lead consultant is to gather. When all the forensic auditors have got all the data and reports from the field, they will put them together and give to the lead consultant who will put them together in a report. That is just his role. He is not the one to carry out any forensic audit.
“This (Messrs Olumuyiwa) Basiru and Co, I do not know if they have ever carried out a forensic audit. So, I will be asking to tell them to give you evidence that they have ever carried out a forensic audit before, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, which requires that for any consultant or contractor, must show evidence that for the past three years or thereabouts, they have carried out that.”
Nunieh also slammed Akpabio for misleading the Federal Executive Council to approve the procurement of auditors even when the audit was to be funded with the 2020 budget of the NDDC.
On the amount spent during her tenure, the ex-NDDC boss disclosed that N8 billion was spent by her administration between October 29, 2019 and February 17, 2020 on the permanent site of the commission’s headquarters, two bridges and other projects.
On the issue of staff recruitment for which approval was given, she said the minister had collected curricula vitae from “godfathers” and she made it known that the issue of employment was already an issue before she came as the Federal Character Commission that used to give NDDC the approval for employment stopped it because of the scandal.
She denied carrying out any recruitment and giving out any contract during her tenure.
Nunieh declared: “I am not corrupt. No contractor can sit anywhere and say they gave me N10. And I can say before the world that I’m the most unpopular MD ever that came to NDDC. The money of the people of Niger Delta is blood money, I refused to touch it. Even when my friends were contractors, even when they claimed that they were owed monies, my instruction was that everybody should finish their jobs. Everybody saw contractors going back to site when I was the MD.
“I was privileged to see all the videos. For one job, five people would send me videos of completion – the same job, the same video – and I would just laugh.”
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