BEVERLY HILLS, May 27, (THEWILL) – The Network Advancement Program for Disaster Risk Reduction (NAPDRR) has flayed some opposition forces including the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), trying to scuttle the ongoing forensic auditing of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
The Ijaw youths took to the streets on Thursday, barricading the NDDC offices across the region in protest against what they described as “delay in constituting the regular Board of the agency.”
In a statement issued on Thursday in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, the NAPDRR President, Hon. Al-Mustapher Emem Edoho, and the Zonal Coordinator, Comrade Uwem Jubril Edukere, the group condemned the ongoing protests by IYC over the NDDC board, explaining that such action was capable of distracting the forensic probe.
Edoho stressed: “The ongoing probe of the Commission would engender peace and development of the region when concluded. The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Godswill Akpabio, and the NDDC Sole Administrator, Pastor Effiong Akwa, are prominent indigenes of Niger Delta and they mean well for the development of our region.
“We have strong confidence in them to deliver on the mandate of President Muhammadu Buhari, to effectively turn around the agency to fulfill its mandate of addressing challenges of poverty and widespread underdevelopment caused by years of corruption in the NDDC.
“NAPDRR condemns the orchestrated campaigns by the IYC to stage unlawful protests and blockade of the NDDC offices. It is totally wrong, after all the Minister has said the new Board of the Commission would be constituted soon after the forensic auditing is completed.”
TheWill reports that the IYC youths in alliance with their kinsmen from Ibeno, Eastern Obolo and Oron and other riverine communities in Akwa Ibom State, on Thursday, joined others in the region in protest over the delay in constituting the regular board of the commission.
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