TWO DECADES OF ESTABLISHMENT OF NIGER DELTA DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION: AN APPRAISAL

Abstract

The Niger Delta Development Commission, an “interventionist agency†of the Federal Government was established pursuant to the Niger Delta Development Commission Act, 2000 (as amended) which repealed the erstwhile Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission Decree, 1998, purposefully to use the sums received from allocation of the Federation Account for tackling ecological problems arising from the exploration and exploitation of oil minerals in the Niger Delta areas and for connected purposes. A perusal of the Act shows elegant and ambitious objectives aimed at mitigating the harshness of age-long environmental, health and other economic consequences occasioned on the people of the Niger Delta areas through the unsustainable prospecting and production of oil and gas since the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity at Oloibiri in the present Bayelsa State, in 1956. It is however, regrettable that twenty-three years after its establishment, the Commission has inadequately achieved its objectives as contained in the 2000 Act primarily due to skewed and poor implementation of the Act. This paper therefore, seeks to appraise the implementation of the legal framework establishing the Commission aimed at evaluating its performance in the past two decades and identifying the challenges in robustly implementing the elegant, ambitious objectives, and intendment of establishing the Commission as contained in the NDDC Act 2000 (as amended). The paper found that in practice, there is obvious conflict between law and politics in the implementation of the NDDC Act which ultimately sacrificed the robust objectives of the Act on the alter of politics. The paper made far reaching recommendations amongst which is that the membership of the Commission’s Board should be populated with persons of integrity as required by the Act, against the present practice of being machinery for rewarding political and partisan loyalty.