New NDDC board ‘should supervise’ forensic audit

Some stakeholders in the Niger Delta region have commended the presidential directive on forensic audit of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) operations.

President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a forensic audit of NDDC operations when he received governors from the region on Thursday.

Reacting to the directive, Jeffrey Emerson, a development economist in Port Harcourt, who has written extensively on the Niger Delta, lauded Buhari for the move.

He said the auditing should be done by a new board whose operation will be independent.

“It’s a very laudable and encouraging move. Stakeholders like us are elated but in carrying out the audit, it has to be supervised by a new board, the new board that has never been part of the rot in the past,” he said in a statement.

“You don’t expect those who have been part of the rot in the past to supervise that audit…The auditing team should work independently with a team and that team, in my view should be the newly named Board. That is the standard practice globally.”

Johnson Ebibai, president of Ijaw Diaspora Coalition, said the audit should be done by a new board.

He said it was widely reported in the media that the commission under the current interim management had secretly interviewed and was set to recruit over 300 new staff members without the board’s approval.

He said it took the intervention and outcry of well-meaning stakeholders in the Niger Delta region to halt the exercise.

Ebibai said such leadership should be entrusted with a responsibility to unravel what has happened in the past which involves them.